


'cause I'm never gonna heal my past (if I run every time it starts)

by KHart



Series: let 'em wonder how we got this far, 'cause I don't really need to wonder at all [1]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: F/F, Multi, but then back to rom-com levels of dramatic climactic moments and happy endings, it's a rollercoaster, it's so much angst and pining, rom-com movie levels of miscommunication and lack of understanding CONTEXT CLUES, romantic movie levels of angst AND pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-07-28 01:11:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16231103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KHart/pseuds/KHart
Summary: And, yeah, Charlotte was sad—maybe devastated, possibly heartbroken—that she could never be with the three of them in the way she wanted. (It even tore her up if she thought about it too long.) But she knew she'd still have them, in some way, and, so, that was enough for her.As long as they were around, it was enough for her.Or, at least, that's what she told herself.That's the lie she believed.---Or: Charlotte's very good at pining after people, but not very good at communicating or reading signals.





	1. there's no reason, there's no rhyme

**Author's Note:**

> This is SUPER Au okay. It's set in NXT days, but it doesn't follow a lot, if any, of the known events that happened in NXT. 
> 
> The title for this comes from the song: "Say it First," by Sam Smith.
> 
> My Tumblr is Flairfatale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "There's no reason, there's no rhyme.
> 
> I found myself blindsided by a feeling that I've never known.
> 
> I'm dealing with it on my own."
> 
> -Malibu Nights, LANY-
> 
> Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/sammm52/playlist/16JCpdKYds2kEH7BL44jyp?si=jylOU2XCS6iHFx1mlhZvzQ

This was never planned for.

(The messiest things rarely ever are.)

Charlotte finding love in a woman was never anticipated. 

(Not with how she was raised.)

Charlotte finding love in _three_ women was completely unfathomable.

(“You've gotta be kidding me.”) 

And yet, here she is, completely and irrevocably in love with three other women—her fellow _Horsewomen_.

(“You can’t ever let things be easy.”)

And she has no idea what to do and not one person to tell.

So, it’s eating her up inside.

(Well, that sounds about right.) 

And what’s worse—what’s probably the worst thing that could have ever happened and somehow did—is that they love _each other_. 

(Oh?)

But not her. 

(Oh.)

Because why would they?

(Ouch.)

Because that’s _just_ her luck with love. 

\---

When Charlotte first signed her contract with WWE, she knew she was way out of her league. She felt like she was in way over her head.

Everything around her at the time was new, and every person looked at her like she needed to live up to her father's reputation but believed she couldn't. Every person talked about her, but no one truly talked _to her_. No one tried to get to know who she was past the name. They didn't care about the facts, and they didn't care about her.

So, she felt alone—utterly isolated—and she truly _didn't_ know if she had what it took to follow in her father's footsteps. She truly _didn't_ _know_ if she could make her brother proud. (She still doesn't, sometimes.)

Because, sure, she picked things up in the ring well, and she had always been an amazing athlete, but there was more to WWE than just the physical. It was mental with the character aspect, and it was emotional because of the fact that she was going to be thrust into the type of public eye that loved to criticize every breath she took.

It was so different from anything else she'd ever done in her life, and she was honestly overwhelmed, because she was a legacy child that felt like she didn't deserve the legacy. 

She was pretty much always miserable, because she felt like she had everything and nothing, all at once.

But then she met Sasha Banks...

Sasha Banks, who was completely self-assured and never-faltering. Sasha Banks, who met her and immediately said, "I was expecting more, not gonna lie." Sasha Banks, who was two heads shorter than her but hundreds of miles ahead of her in her preparation for the big leagues.

Sasha Banks, who was intimidating and beautiful and never held anything back but her emotions... 

It was when Charlotte was put with Sasha that she felt like she started to get a firmer foothold in her standings. 

It was Sasha who trained with her in the ring because she seemed to want to, not because she had to. It was Sasha who gave her advice on her character. Sasha who stayed by her side, even though they'd only met a short time before. 

It was Sasha who told her, "If they already think it, don't waste your time _trying_ to prove them wrong. Just do what you do and know that they'll realize it in their own time."

And, it might not have been friendship, in those early days--or, at least, they wouldn't have admitted that it was--but it _was_ an alliance without a doubt. It was an "I'll watch your back if you watch mine," unspoken agreement.

And Charlotte will never forget that. 

She'll always remember the random late night trips to get sushi, to go to the gym, to just drive around in the early hours of the morning because "Char, we're so cooped up all the time. I feel like we never see anything but the inside of the PC."

She'll always remember who had her back first. 

Just as she'll always remember that it was Bayley who came along and showed them both that it was okay to have friends in the business. 

Bayley, with a disposition similar in brightness to that of the sun's rays.

Bayley, who from the very start told everyone what she thought they could improve upon and what she thought they were doing great at. 

Bayley, who showed that she cared, and never showed malice, and wasn't prepared to shove anyone down and walk over them to get ahead.

Charlotte remembers Sasha being suspicious of the woman at first. She remembers her saying she didn't trust her. 

But then Bayley started spending more time with the two of them. She came to fit into the places that Charlotte and Sasha didn't particularly fit _together_ , and things changed.

Charlotte and Sasha found themselves smiling more often, showing more affection, not glancing over their shoulder for eavesdroppers as consistently.

They started to trust more. They used the words "friends" as a descriptor for one another and for Bayley, and everything felt settled.

They didn't even know they were missing a part until Becky came whirling into their life a little later, all high energy and hurried movements. An explosive presence that nearly knocked Charlotte off her feet at the very first interaction.

Becky, with her endless puns and her awe-inspiring dedication.

Becky, who made sure to never take any of what she had for granted.

Becky, who brought such experience and soul to the three of them, that she completed the puzzle and solved the riddle. 

Becky, who made Charlotte realize that they were never meant to be a trio.

That they were always meant to be a foursome. Always a stable. 

It was always supposed to be Charlotte, Becky, Sasha, Bayley. Bayley, Charlotte, Sasha, Becky. Sasha, Charlotte, Bayley, Becky.

It never mattered the order.

If they were together, they were okay. 

If Charlotte had her three girls, her best friends, her _soulmates_ , she was fine.

And since they were so constant, since they were always there. Since they were always ready to hold and be held by her, she never thought a day would come where she _didn't_ have them.

She never prepped for it, and she never made a plan B. 

When she realized, on a slow, Saturday afternoon, as they were all lounging about in Bayley's apartment, that she _loved_ them, that she'd loved them from the start, it felt like coming home. It felt like all the times when her body was cold but then warmed by a fire. It was a gradual, swelling sensation that settled within her and decided to stay. 

It wasn't surprising. 

And, yeah, Charlotte was sad—maybe devastated, possibly heartbroken—that she could never be with the three of them in the way she wanted. (It even tore her up if she thought about it too long.) But she knew she'd still have them, in some way, and, so, that was enough for her. 

As long as they were around, it was enough for her.

Or, at least, that's what she told herself. 

That's the lie she believed.

It's the lie that she didn't even know was false until she found out that, no, they didn't love _her_ back, but they did, in fact, love _one another_. 

Because _that_  was the game changer. That was when she realized she needed to reevaluate how she was going about her life. 

That was when her future with them—which had seemed so cemented and sure before—was abruptly propelled into an uncertain gray area. 

And here’s how it went down: 

Charlotte was walking backstage after a routine match at a NXT live show, looking for her best friends, the three other Horsewomen, as they were starting to be called. 

She was looking for them because they were supposed to ride together to the next city over, and she needed to see whose turn it was to drive, because, honestly, she was drained and needed a _good_ nap. (And even though they'd all let her skip her turn on driving if she told them, she knew she wouldn't let them do that, so she needed to know whether an energy drink was in her future or not.)

 _So_ , when there was a blonde flash of hair up ahead, different from her own, she called out a quick, “Hey, Dana!” to get the woman's attention.

Dana paused in her momentum forward and turned to her with a friendly grin. Charlotte slowed to a stop before her.

"What's up, Charlotte?"

"Hey," Charlotte repeated. "Have you seen—?”

Dana nodded her head.

”Your girls are all in the locker room waitin’ on you," she said, before the question could even be finished. "I just left ‘em there.”

Charlotte smiled, out of pure instinct.

"Thanks, Dana."

She started to head in the right direction with a warm feeling in her stomach.

 _Her girls_. 

She always liked the sound of that... 

She always liked that pretty much everyone referred to them as that when she would mention them, and she especially liked when she was included as being one of theirs when the roles were reversed.

Hearing the words always put her mood on a slightly higher number than it had been just moments before, so she made her way to the locker room with a smile on her face. Even as she tripped lightly on one of her shoelaces that had come untied, she just shook her head lightly with a chuckle and knelt down to tie it back up. 

It was no big deal. 

But then she heard their voices seeping through the door. 

And _that's_ when everything shifted and spun out of control.

"She should be coming any minute now, right?" she heard Bayley ask.

"Yeah," Becky responded. "She finished her match about fifteen minutes ago."

"Okay, so, like, how are we gonna tell her?"

"I don't know," suddenly came Sasha's words. "But it's gotta be in the most tactful way possible."

"Yeah," Becky agreed. "We don't want her running out on us."

"So, like, what can we _say_?" Bayley repeated.

"I don't _know._  It's not like I ever planned to be with more than one person. I don't exactly have a _speech_ prepared."

"Okay, Sasha, babe, I know you're nervous, but don't take it out on us."

There was the sound of a sigh, and it somehow reached Charlotte through the sudden ringing in her ears.

"I'm sorry. I just—."

"We know, love," Bayley reassured softly. "We don't want to lose her either."

Charlotte recognized Becky's scoff.

"C'mon, guys. This is _Charlotte_ we're talking about. She's our girl. We won't lose her."

"You don't think the idea of three people in a relationship will overwhelm her?"

"Well, it might, at first, but..."

Charlotte stood and nearly staggered backwards before she could hear any more.

She supported herself against the wall opposite the door. 

Her wide eyes searched frantically around the hall for any other soul that might've listened to what had just been revealed, but there was none.

She was the only one that had been sent reeling. 

She was the only one that felt as if the air in her chest had just been snatched entirely out of it. 

And, dimly, in the background, she could still make out the faint voices of her friends in the locker room, but she was too busy blinking rapidly at the tears in her eyes to interpret their words any further. 

Because all of her carefully constructed stability was suddenly faltering, and she had no failsafes set in place to keep her from following suit. So, all she knew in the moment, was that she had to get out of there, and fast. 

It didn't matter that they were still waiting on her and would be wondering where she was. It didn't matter that Dana would probably mention that she had been headed their way before her disappearance. It didn't matter that she'd have to sneak back into the locker room later to grab her things. 

None of it mattered. 

Not when the three people she just so happened to fall in love with were apparently together and trying to figure out how to break the news to her. 

Not when she could feel every single piece of her heart that was in their hands slipping away, through their fingers and to the floor.

Not when she knew she needed to find a place to recover—or regroup, really. she'd never recover—so that she could face them in a couple of hours when they rode together. 

No. None of it mattered.

So, she did what she had trained to do when she was younger, when she was in track. 

She took off. Nearly a full sprint down the hall to get as far away from them as possible. 

She didn't particularly know where she was going, but that didn't really matter in the moment either.

And when she almost bowled over Paige in the process, she just barely managed to get out a rushed and breathless "I'm sorry. So sorry," and keep going, because it was really just all tunnel vision for her.

She wasn't aware of how long she ran for, and, when she finally did stop moving, when she pressed her forearm against the wall at her right and bent over to catch her breath, she had no idea where she was. (Which would seem like a problem to someone who had _rational_ thoughts running through their head, but to her just meant that _they_ would have no idea where she was either.)

So, she paid her location no mind, as a heavier sigh suddenly heaved out of her. She merely blinked at the tears that had been blurring her vision since her turn around the fifth corner.

Her exerted legs wobbled under her, so she let herself sink down to the ground. A sob rocked its way through her just as she brought her hands up to her face and her knees up to her chest.

Her heart pounded in her ears twice, and then she finally breathed out a hoarse and ragged, "Oh my god." 

Her features crumpled in on themselves, gave into their anguish, and her shoulders shook with her next inhale.

Another abrupt cry tore away from her lips, cracking and bouncing off the empty space and walls around her, and she quickly used her shaking fingers to cover them, in hopes that they could stop the next one. 

She swallowed and tried her hardest to rein it all in. She knew she didn't have a lot of time for her reprieve. 

A few minutes passed, where she just sat in the shadowy corridor and tried her best to hold her pieces together. Some more moments slipped away, and everything felt shaky and shattered all at once.

It felt like her world had crumbled around her, and she had nowhere else to place her feet. She was on her knees, knocked flat on her back, curled in on her side. She was down for the count, and she honestly wasn't sure she'd ever be able to stand tall again. 

Because it wasn't until that moment that she realized how horribly she'd been fooling herself, in thinking that her love for them wasn't the reason she kept going some days. It wasn't until that moment, with all hope for them reciprocating that love gone, that she realized she'd been fooling herself into believing she'd be fine if they fell in love with other people. 

It wasn't until that moment that she realized how fully she revolved around them, how fully her thoughts revolved around them. 

And it was almost funny—see: ironic—that she could be so focused on them but still miss such a development.

Because _when_ had they gotten together? _When_ was the first time that she wasn't included in the word "we?" Was there any moment she could pinpoint where they had started acting differently with each other? In a way that they didn't act with her? 

She didn't _think_ so. She was sure she would've noticed.

But, then, maybe she wouldn't have. Maybe she _was_ too oblivious. Maybe _that's_ what they mean when they say love is blind?

She let out a soft, broken noise.

"God, you're so fucking stupid," she whispered to herself, without mercy. " _So stupid_."

This time when she wiped her hands across her face, she did it with more force. She dug the heels of her palms into her eye sockets as if they could possibly push the moisture back into her head.

"Pull yourself together," she continued. "Get it _together,_ Charlotte."

She drew in an unsteady breath, a last fortifying attempt to make herself solid and strong, and then she pushed herself up off of the floor.

She didn't know how long it had been since she'd heard them in the locker room, but she was almost positive that they had probably vacated the space, so she headed in that direction as cautiously as possible. 

Even with her increased vigilance, though, every new corner she turned around had her heart beating rapidly, for fear that she'd run into them, and it was only pure luck that allowed her to make it to her destination without further incident. Even more fortunate than that, however, was the fact that there was no one else in the locker room when she entered, so she could collect her things swiftly and quietly. 

She was changed out of her gear and looking into the mirror of the bathroom within only a few minutes.

She cringed lightly at the sight of herself. At the sight of her swollen eyes and blotchy cheeks.

She _refused_ to look for too long, because she knew she might start to crumble again, and that was the last thing she needed.  

So, she, instead, grabbed a cold, damp paper towel and held it to the physical evidence of her break down.

She stood and waited for as long as she needed to until she was satisfied with how it faded away, but with that waiting came the anxiety of time passing and, thus, leaving her more vulnerable to discovery.

Because she honestly had no clue where her girls were or what their programming was for the night, and the thought of them coming in to find her alone was making it feel hard to breathe again. The thought of being _with_ _them_ alone, so that they could tell her the reality of her worst nightmare made her feel like she was going to throw up. 

So, she wasted no more moments by standing around. 

She threw the towel in the garbage, slung her duffle bag over her shoulder, grabbed her rolling suitcase, and headed for the door.

Her phone was in her back pocket now, but she didn't even glance at it. She wasn't in the mood for being connected to anything or anyone.

And her journey towards the garage should've been simple and straightforward. But then she heard their voices coming from the distance, from the direction she was heading in, and she froze up. 

Her still bruised, still battered, somehow beating heart leapt up into her throat, and a ringing settled soundly within her ears. 

She took quick stock of any doors or escape routes she could take, but the only one available to her was that of the place where she'd just left. 

Their voices got closer, and she concluded that retreating was better than nothing, so she did a quick pivot on her heel and nearly ran again. 

Already, a thousand different excuses as to why she couldn't stay were swirling around her mind, ready to be told. Because she knew now that she would have to run into them. There was nowhere else for her to go. 

It was with a resigned and real ache in her chest that she stepped back inside the locker room and made it look like she was rifling through her bag.

And it didn't take long for the sound of the door opening to have her shoulders squaring and her spine straightening, in the way she instinctively braced herself.

"How about they just say that to my face next time..."

Sasha's sentence trailed off just as Becky's call of "Charlotte!" sounded out. 

Charlotte flinched some. 

She took in one deep breath before turning around to face them.

(The smile she plastered across her face was hopefully one they wouldn't be able to see through, even though seeing through her was probably what they were most adept at doing, other than wrestling.) 

"Hey..." she greeted, still too stiffly.

“Hey, Char," Bayley said, making it to her first and pulling her into a hug. "Great match tonight."

Charlotte's arms moved up and looped around Bayley's waist on instinct, without her consent. 

"Thanks."

"We were waitin’ for ya here earlier, lass," came Becky's voice, followed by another hug. "Where’d you go?”

"Oh, I..." Charlotte's sentence trailed off before it could even start. Her eyes cut away as a lie popped into her head. "I went to see Doc."

"Why? Are you hurt?" were the first words from Sasha, prompting Charlotte's gaze to move back naturally.

"N-No, I—."

Becky's hand suddenly came to rest against Charlotte's forehead. Charlotte bit down on her bottom lip.

"You don't feel warm, but you look pale. Are you feeling alright?"

She gave a light shake of her head.

"I don't really feel one hundred percent, I'm not gonna lie."

"Where are you at on the scale?" Bayley asked, gentle with concern. 

Charlotte swallowed thickly.

 _'The scale's been absolutely ground into dust, honestly,'_ is what she wanted to say. 

She fought the tears that tried to pop back up to blur her vision, and she willed herself not to let them glint in front of the three of them.

"Like 60 percent, maybe?" she offered quietly, already too weak to be believable.

"So, more like a 30 then," Sasha concluded firmly. "I'll get you some water."

"You don't—."

But Sasha was already walking away, towards her bag, and Charlotte could do nothing but watch the way her hair bobbed as she went. Her breath caught with her next inhale. 

She pressed the nails of her right hand into her thigh briefly, as her emotions started to come back to overwhelm her. She clenched her jaw once because she knew she was getting worse at hiding them by the way Bayley and Becky were watching her.

"I'll drive tonight," Bayley said next, with no room for argument. 

"I can do it."

"Nope," Becky answered automatically. "Don't think so, love. You've officially got the night off."

Charlotte opened her mouth, to argue again, to try to say something that might take her attention away from how tenderly the two were looking at her, but then Sasha reappeared with a bottle of water and some Tylenol. 

"Here, Char," she said, handing off the items. "We've gotta go 'confront' some cocky newbies in the ring, but we'll see you after, okay? If you want, you can go turn the car on and wait there. We shouldn't be longer than thirty minutes."

Charlotte just nodded wordlessly and accepted their last fleeting glances and brushes of farewell. When they were out of sight and through the door, she let her shoulders slump down, and she released a shaky breath through her nose. 

 _God_ , she thought, _how was she going to do this? If a five minute interaction sent her reeling so rapidly?_

How was she going to be strong enough to be around them like usual, knowing what she did? Would she even be able to avoid them if she tried? Or would she miss them too much to stay away?

She squeezed her eyes shut tight. Clenched her jaw.

"You're good, Flair," she whispered to herself. "Shake it off. You're good."

Try as she might to convince herself, to believe, the crack in her voice betrayed her. 

She swore under her breath: " _Fuck_."

She gripped the water bottle in her hand tighter. 

It just wasn't fair for her to feel this way, she lamented, for the millionth time. It wasn't _logical_. 

Because she had already _known_ that they didn't feel the same way. She had known for a long time, actually, and she had sworn that she was at peace with that knowledge. She had _felt_ like she was. 

But this? Having the people she loved in a relationship with one another? How could she come to terms with that without a drastic change in how she interacted with them? How could she even _continue_ to interact with them?

She couldn't, could she? 

There was no way she could. 

She let out a breathy huff. 

But there was also no way she could really live without them.

"Fuck me."

She was screwed either way.

\---

About ten minutes after Bayley, Sasha, and Becky left her, Charlotte took Sasha's suggestion and headed to the car. 

She figured that, at least, if she got there first, then she would be able to feign sleep, so that they wouldn't try to talk to her. And that was the ideal outcome.

So, after neatly situating her bags in the trunk, she slid into the backseat and curled up, with her hoodie tugged close and her eyes shut firm.

When the doors eventually opened, some indiscernible amount of time later, she made sure that her breathing was deep and that her face was relaxed.

She hoped with all that she was that their knack for knowing when she was lying wouldn't come into play _,_  just as she had when she forced her smile,and, fortunately, it seemed that the universe decided to cut her broken heart _some_ slack, because they immediately dropped their voices to a whisper, so as not to disturb her. 

They moved around and settled in as quietly as they could, and Charlotte's chest ached at how careful they were being, because she knew, that even if it wasn't in the way she wanted, they really did have so much love for her.

(She wished that she could get over herself and let that be enough. She wished she could stop being selfish and start being happy for them.)

But even with the exhaustion and near numbness in her body, she still felt that stabbing sensation in her gut, and it was refusing to let up no matter how much she wished it would show some mercy.

(No matter how hard she willed herself to just accept the way things were apparently going to be, she couldn't change the way she felt. She couldn't stop the sickness from churning within her.) 

And it absolutely sucked. 

It sucked _enough_ to have some of her upset translated into the expression on her face unconsciously, which prompted Becky, who Charlotte knew was the one sitting just beside her, to scoot closer, after they had been driving for a little while.

At the shift, and as Becky's eyes watched her, Charlotte became highly aware of how much she was most definitely _not_ asleep. Another breath released slowly out of her nose, and then gentle fingers reached over to move some hair from her forehead.

She almost started to cry again on the spot. 

Becky's thumb traced over one of her furrowed eyebrows.

"Havin' a bad dream, Charlie?" she whispered quietly, not for Charlotte to actually hear her. 

Charlotte felt herself soften anyway. Some of the tension in her face relaxed.

Becky brought her hand down so that she could instead wrap her arms around Charlotte's waist and rest her head on Charlotte's shoulder. 

"I've got ya, love," she reassured then. "Just in case you wake up and need to see a friendly face."

And Charlotte knew—because it had happened so many times before—that her shifting to _instinctively_ return the embrace wouldn't be suspicious. So, she gave into that urge, that impulse, that selfish need to feel one of her favorite people close to her for what would probably be one of the last times.

And Becky just snuggled in closer once Charlotte—slowly and convincingly sleepily—wrapped her arm around the back of her shoulders.

So, for the rest of the ride, Charlotte was able to ignore that crushing weight, of a love she wouldn't ever be able to act on, sitting on top of her chest, on top of her bones, settled against her soul. 

And it was enough to lull her into an actual sleep. If only for a little while. Even though she knew it would all have to change when she woke back up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> See you next chapter!


	2. life is full of sweet mistakes (and love's an honest one to make)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Life is full of sweet mistakes, and love's an honest one to make.
> 
> Time leaves no fruit on the tree. 
> 
> But you're gonna live forever in me. 
> 
> I guarantee. It's just meant to be."
> 
> \---
> 
> "And when the pastor asks the pews, for reasons he can't marry you,
> 
> I'll keep my word in my seat.
> 
> But you're gonna live forever in me.
> 
> I guarantee. Just wait and see."
> 
> -You're Gonna Live Forever in Me, John Mayer-
> 
> Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/sammm52/playlist/16JCpdKYds2kEH7BL44jyp?si=jylOU2XCS6iHFx1mlhZvzQ

You see, the thing is, Charlotte knew that everything didn't _really_ have to change.

Charlotte knew that if she was only  _strong enough_ , she could have herself suffer in silence but still hold onto being a part of them, being a part of their unit, for just a while longer. 

She knew that if she chose to stay and act like she didn't know anything, she could still eat protein pancakes with them in the morning, work out with them in the afternoon, live out their dreams in the evening. She knew that she could virtually have all she wanted, if she just stayed quiet. Because the only thing that really seemed like it had changed was their title in relation to one another. 

They were still _her_ best friends, just each other's girlfriends. And they still looked at her like they wanted her there. They still laughed at her jokes. They still brushed hair from her face and made sure she was hydrated. 

They didn't make any indication that they were even thinking about excluding her from things. 

But it was just that ever-present fear, that ever-present knowledge, that she somehow wasn't good enough to be with them, that made it feel impossible to continue.

And it had never really affected how she interacted with them before, but, suddenly, as she was faced with being the only one to not have her relationship with them advanced, it was all she could think about. Suddenly, as she realized that maybe it _was_ meant to be a trio, and that _she_ was an extra corner, a loose end not included in the ties, it was all she could focus on.

So, that brings them all to the present.

It's about two weeks later, two weeks since the destruction of Charlotte's world, and, though she is loathe to admit that things are worse between all of them, things are indeed worse.

(Just a little bit, though. Just enough, maybe.) 

Because while Charlotte would like to think that she's been handling the situation as best as she can—and, arguably, you could say she is—her methods are still not _the_ best.

But she hasn't been acting that horribly towards them, okay.

She's just been a little more distant, is all, and that seems perfectly reasonable when every second she's around them makes the weight push harder, press deeper, into her lungs.

It's not like she's cut them off _altogether_.

She _has_ still been spending time with them. She's still been smiling at them, she's still been getting them coffee in the mornings, she's still been riding with them.

She didn't pull her hand away from Bayley when the woman reached over from the passenger side to intertwine their fingers together. She didn't draw back when Becky felt tired and said she needed someone to lean on. She even managed not to flinch when Sasha met her eyes and asked her if she was okay, with a certain sort of look to her gaze that made Charlotte feel transparent.

She's just been a little quieter, is all, and that seems perfectly reasonable when the way they look when they're listening to her words creates a pain so sharp it feels like her sternum is going to crack apart. 

But she's still been _looking out for them_ , still been spotting them in the gym, still been ensuring they're not pushing themselves too hard.

It's just a little distance, is all it is. A little room to breathe, so that she can survive.

And it all seems perfectly reasonable. 

But then, in the moments when she isn't strong enough to smile at them or spend time with them, she sometimes catches their eyes lingering on her in a confused, maybe a little hurt, way, and then it doesn't seem as justified. It doesn't seem as reasonable.

Because, of course, it's not  _their_   _fault_ that Charlotte is so irrevocably in love with them. And, of course, Becky, Sasha, and Bayley never stopped being as great and supportive and constant as they always have been. And she could  _never_  possibly be mad at them for not loving her. So, honestly, truly, she doesn't blame them, and she never could.

And, yes, of course, she absolutely feels horrible about it all. Because it's like she's punishing them for something they aren't even aware they did, and that's terribly unfair.

But, to cut herself some slack, she has a broken heart and a suffocating amount of love in her chest that she can't get rid of. 

So, still, she pushes on with the only coping mechanism she's ever known.

And it isn't until nearly another week has passed of Charlotte returning less messages, answering less calls, shortening their interactions, decreasing the consistency of her touches, that she officially concludes that maybe it's not the best method, and maybe that's a problem.

Because with her mind so occupied with making sure she's not doing too little but also ensuring that she's not doing too much, it manages to slip her conscious that maybe she should warn them about the new feud she's about to get into with an up and coming newbie.

Which, usually, wouldn't be  _that_  important in the grand scheme of things, but is this time because the aforementioned newbie wants to make an  _impact_ , a  _statement._  And that statement is set to come in the form of an attack after one of Charlotte's matches. 

And all four of them—The Four Horsewomen—have a rule... That if there's any form of fake attack or fake injury set in place for a storyline, they inform one another, so that they don't have a full-on heart attack thinking it to be legit.

So, Charlotte letting it slip her mind that she should tell them she's going to get "attacked" breaks that rule, and it effectively makes her rethink her entire strategy. Because she doesn't want to make them _worry_. She doesn't want her inner turmoil to actually, _noticeably_ affect everything, and she already knows she's pushing it with how much she's edged away from them already. 

So, this slip-up, this falter in her feet, in her dance across the edge and along the line, is almost like a wake up call. (One she doesn't know if she'll pick up or not.)

This slip-up makes her realize that she can't be half-in and half-out. She's got to be all in, in either direction. She's either got to tell them everything or nothing at all.

And maybe it doesn't seem that important at first glance, this situation. But to her—to _them_ —it's always been about trust. They've  _always_ kept each other updated. They've always kept one another informed, and they've always checked in to make sure everyone's okay.

So, her not telling them is breaking that _trust,_ it's putting her sureness, her dependency, on even shakier ground. It's drawing attention to the fact that there's a problem, a chink in the armor, among them.

And the situation is made just that much worse when she actually gets injured in the spot, because then she knows they won't brush it off as easily. 

And it's not _that_ _bad_ , the injury.

The girl is just too enthusiastic, a little too reckless, and so the chair shot to Charlotte's back is not well-placed at all. She uses the solid top of the chair as more of a battering ram than anything else, and, as a result, real pain bursts to life across Charlotte's right shoulder as she crumples to the mat.

Clutching at it and selling it is easy. Rolling onto her stomach is more instinctual than intentional in the moment. 

The second, flatter hit is more like what she's used to. It's one she can shake off. 

But the damage has already been done, and an ache is already reverberating down the length of her arm. 

The other blows she takes are routine, though, and soon enough it's over, and she's walking back into gorilla. 

(She makes sure to mask her pain well. Because, after all, she doesn't want the girl to get in trouble... She'll just have to talk to her later about how to handle chairs and other props more safely. No big deal.) 

It's not until she's entering the locker room that she thinks she can let her guard down.

"What the hell, Charlotte?"

But then the sudden sound of a familiar, boss-persona voice has her walls slamming back into place.

(Oh, there's no way this will end well.)

She turns around with an expression she hopes isn't too similar to a deer caught in headlights. She shifts her weight between each of her feet.

"Uh, hi?" she tries, only to be met with three unimpressed expressions. "You, uh, you saw the match?"

She doesn't get a verbal answer, and the trio of identically raised eyebrows she _is_ presented with nearly makes her shiver. It _definitely_ sets her nerves on edge. 

She almost gulps as she watches the way Becky's jaw ticks. How Bayley's fingers tap against her crossed arms. How Sasha's eyes have that scary sort of shine to them. 

(Yep, definitely  _not_  about to end well.)

"You knew that spot was going to happen after your match, and you didn't tell us." 

Charlotte winces. Sasha never has an issue getting straight to the point.

She lifts the arm not currently hurting to rub at the back of her neck, and she shifts her gaze down to her feet for a fleeting second. 

"Yeah, I—I'm sorry about that," she says, truthfully. "I honestly forgot to tell you."

She looks up just in time to watch their eyes narrow at her. Well, more like Sasha and Becky's eyes. Bayley bites down on her bottom lip, instead, looking more confused than angry, and Charlotte thinks that might be worse.

There's about one beat of her heart, and two ticks of the clock on the wall. 

Then "You forgot," is what Becky repeats, in a way that is very monotonous and very unhappy. 

Charlotte nods lamely.

"Yeah. I promise I did. I would never keep it from you on purpose." She clears her throat some. "I just—I've had a lot of stuff on my mind lately, and I—."

She cuts off abruptly, realizing too late that she just segued into a conversation she does  _not_  want to have.

She desperately hopes for them to somehow miss it, but it's a foolish wish.

"Oh, really?" Sasha exclaims. "What kind of stuff? Please elaborate."

Charlotte feels her tension increase. Her spine could probably snap if another chair were to come along and merely tap it.

She shifts her weight between her feet again. 

"You know," she says weakly, gesturing at nothing. "Just... stuff, guys. It's—It's nothing."

"If it was nothing, you wouldn't be shutting yourself off from us like you have been."

Something heavy settles within Charlotte's stomach at Bayley's soft words. 

She swallows thickly and glances away again before they can see the tears that have suddenly sprung up in her eyes.

"I—I'm not—."

"Don't lie to our faces right now, Charlotte," Becky stops her before she can even get started.

Charlotte swallows again, and she nods because she can't think of anything else to do.

She's on the verge of letting out a sob, the ever-present one that's always in her throat these days, and they must know it, because they soften up a little.  

"Char, what's the  _matter_?" Bayley asks, near pleadingly. "What are you not letting us know?"

"Did we do something?" Becky adds on. 

"N-No," Charlotte reassures immediately. "No, you didn't do anything." She tugs a little at the hem of the shirt she's wearing over her gear. "It's really nothing important, I just—It's just something I need to deal with on my own, okay? I promise I'm alright."

"And if it gets worse, and you feel like you can't deal with it on your own, you know you've got us, right?" Sasha asks.

Charlotte nods. Because she knows. Of course, she knows. It's the only thing she's sure of.

"Yeah," she breathes out. "I know."

A silence falls over them.

Becky, Sasha, and Bayley look at her like they want to ask more, like they want to take her troubles away, like they want to close the distance. 

And Charlotte can't take that. Which is why she'd created the distance in the first place.

So, she turns around and goes to pull her shirt up and over her head.

At the varying noises of surprise that follow, she pauses again, remembering the shot from the chair.

"What?"

She cranes her neck around to try to see what has to be the evidence of the damage done, but she can't make it out.

"She got you good, huh?" Bayley asks, suddenly right behind her and ghosting her fingertips across her shoulder. (If it feels like fire follows in their wake, Charlotte is accounting that to the sensitivity of the area.) "I'm gonna go get you some ice."

"I'll come with," Becky says, her voice a little harder. "See if I can find the lass and have a little chat."

"Becky," Charlotte says instinctively, a tone of warning. 

"Just a chat, Charlie."

Charlotte makes pointed eye contact, the longest amount of eye contact in some weeks, and Becky looks like she understands what it means. (She also looks like she doesn't want to break it.)

But she follows Bayley out of the room soon enough, and then Charlotte is left with Sasha as company. 

And she loves Sasha just as much as Becky and Bayley. She'd die and fight and live for Sasha. 

But Sasha when she's angry, or disappointed, or irritated, is a Sasha that Charlotte would prefer to not be around. 

And that point is proven in the next moment when cool fingertips suddenly poke sharply and swiftly into her smarting area of skin.

Charlotte lets out a light hiss. 

"Ah,  _fuck_ , Sasha, chill out!"

" _That_  was for not telling us and letting yourself be hurt."

Charlotte grumbles under her breath without argument and returns her attention to her bag. (Because she knows she deserved that. Just a little bit. Not that she'll admit it.)

A sequence of uneventful seconds passes, and then she hears Sasha let out a sigh, just before strong arms wrap around her waist and pull her closer.

Charlotte immediately stills in her movements.

Her hardness lasts for only a few more seconds, and then she melts into the embrace. Her muscles relax, and her hands come down to cover Sasha's own. 

Because the last time she'd truly let herself hug and be hugged by one of her girls was in the car with Becky, on that night when the rug was pulled out from under her. And, somehow, she'd almost managed to forget what it felt like. Somehow, she'd  _almost_  forgotten how safe and warm and steady she felt in their arms. And, _maybe_ , that was her original intention, but, suddenly, in the moment, she can't remember why she'd ever let that happen.

So, the lump in her throat throbs as she lets her eyelids slide closed.

"You're stupid," Sasha mumbles, gentler now, than before. "And reckless."

Charlotte smiles just barely. She lets out a breathy laugh.

"Learned it from you."

Sasha's fingers press into her abdomen, where she knows Charlotte is ticklish, prompting her to try to squirm away on instinct. 

"Sash,  _stop_ ," she says, with no real bite, still just as soft. 

"Are you gonna take it back?"

"Now, you already know that I'd be lying if I said it wasn't true."

"Hey, I may be reckless too, but that doesn't mean you got yours from me. Yours is like _ten times_ worse."

"Okay, first of all, that is  _false_. And, second of all,  _you're_  the one who always likes to claim you taught me everything I know. You gotta pick a side, Boss."

Sasha hums lightly, in acknowledgment, and Charlotte knows she could say something else. Charlotte knows she probably wants to. 

But Sasha's in her post-worry mood, and that means she's being a little more lenient with what she'll let slide in terms of trash talk. 

So, when Charlotte feels the woman's hold around her get a little looser but just that much more tender, she knows their "argument" is over for now. 

And when soft lips suddenly press themselves into the same hurting spot that was just so rudely attacked a minute before, Charlotte barely has the strength to resist the shiver that wants to roll through her spine.

"I'm always on  _your side_. You know that, right?"

Charlotte starts to turn around near instantly, because the sudden earnestness within Sasha's voice is rare in its appearances. (Because Sasha obviously likes to hide her feelings under sarcastic words and well-intentioned actions. She likes to speak with what she does, and what she actually  _says_  is usually coated in ten layers of exasperation and sharpness, even when what she says is caring.)

So, the sudden sincerity lets Charlotte know that this is the part of the conversation where their eyes need to meet, and, though she's been avoiding prolonged eye contact for the past three weeks, she can't help how Sasha's caring voice always weakens her. She never could. 

When they're finally facing one another, Sasha's arms, once again, tighten around her, as if scared she'll run at the drop of a hat. 

And Charlotte doesn't want to admit to herself that she probably would, so she returns the embrace around Sasha's own waist and tilts her head, like she doesn't know why Sasha's bringing her loyalty up.

"Yeah, Sash," she whispers. "I know."

Sasha's eyes search her own, flitting back and forth between them and the features of her face as if she's searching for the answers Charlotte won't give her verbally.

"I just—I hate that I don't know what's been going on in that head of yours lately, and I just wanted to make sure that you know I'm always in your corner. I've always got your back. And so do our other girls. I don't feel like you hear that enough."

Charlotte swallows thickly, with a faint nod. She manages to keep herself from gasping around the feeling in her stomach, of something grabbing hold of her insides and squeezing.

"Yeah," she rasps out. "Yeah, I know." The guilt presses up against the lump in her throat. She feels like she needs to atone for some of her sins. "And you know there’s no corner I’d rather be in than you guys’.” She smiles some, though its weak and watery. “You’re my girls.”

Sasha once again searches her expression. Something significant is etched into the features of her face, but Charlotte can't figure it out for the life of her.

“And you’re ours,” she eventually whispers, in a way that sounds a lot like a promise.

Charlotte's chest pangs.

"Yeah?" she breathes out, without really thinking about it. 

Sasha's eyebrows furrow then, as if she's confused by how Charlotte could show any doubt about it. 

"Yeah," she confirms, solid and steady. "Of course.  _Always_. From the start. Till the end."

Charlotte's throat bobs, and Sasha's gaze is so acute again, so attuned now to the  _one_  hint Charlotte has let slip in the past few weeks.

Something in the air feels like it shifts, it feels like it gets heavier, somehow more meaningful than before. 

Charlotte's heart rate picks up.

Of its own volition, her eyes flit down to Sasha's lips, but she forces them back up in the next split-second, already feeling guilty. 

Sasha seems like she noticed, but she doesn't move away, she doesn't pull back. She just tilts her head.

And it's such a small tick, such a small motion, but, suddenly, Charlotte is flashing back to those early days, when it was just the two of them. When she would watch Sasha drive during the late hours of the night. When it was only Sasha that would be there at the end of the day. When it wasn't love, but it was respect, and it was admiration, and it was "I don't know what I'd do without you, but don't think too much about it."

Charlotte marvels at how far they've come since then. She marvels at the woman she's watching Sasha _become_. 

She thinks about how Sasha still has such a mouth on her, but how she's not as afraid to show her heart anymore. 

She doesn't play her cards as close to the vest. She doesn't hesitate to stand up for them. She doesn't think twice about pulling them into her arms if they're feeling unsteady.

She was the first one in Charlotte's heart, and she's usually the first one to know when something's hurting it. 

Because they're so similar still. They can just read each other so well. 

They've always had such an easy flow and chemistry about them, and that's why it feels like the most natural thing when they both start to lean closer.

Even though Charlotte hadn't even _realized_ the sudden lack of space until she felt Sasha's faint exhale against her mouth.

Her eyelids flutter.

An alarm sounds out in the back of her mind, it makes a ring settle into her ears. Her brain tries to slam on the brakes, tries to make her pull away, and maybe apologize, but then, suddenly, their lips are pressed together, in a way that's patient and calm, and there's nothing she can do to stop the momentum.

For a moment, there's so much shock in Charlotte's system that she's unsure of what's happening. She can't really process the fact that she's kissing one of her best friends.

But then Sasha's lips move against hers, and she realizes that not only is she _kissing one of her best friends_ but also that one of her best friends is kissing her _back_. 

And she knows she _should_ feel overjoyed at that. She _should_ feel elated, and hopeful, and filled with promise. 

But she doesn't.

Because just as Sasha's fingers curl in a little at the small of Charlotte's back, which is also a little sore from the chair attack, Charlotte remembers just who they're missing. She remembers just who went to go get her ice for her injury. 

Becky and Bayley. Sasha's _girlfriends_. 

Charlotte's other two best friends, who could walk in at any moment and see just how Charlotte's betraying their trust once again.

So, consequently, the squeezed insides of her stomach roll over themselves sickeningly.

She pulls away in the next second just as Sasha does—the air supply in their lungs had started to lessen. Her eyebrows knit themselves together. She suddenly doesn't know how to string any words into sentences—or burning questions—and there's absolutely no way she can focus on speaking when Sasha is looking at her like there's something she needs to get, like if she could just  _think_  hard enough, all the secrets would be unlocked.

Her mind is moving a million miles a minute, and she's just so _confused_ , and so unexpectedly breathless, that all she can feel is the lingering sensation of the kiss. She almost brings her fingers to her mouth to keep it there even, to imprint it and never forget.

But then the door opens and she straightens back up again. She snaps out of it but also doesn't. 

"A hug without us?" comes Becky's voice after a few seconds, startling Charlotte even more, jarring her senses further. "Rude."

Sasha leans back in to press her ear against Charlotte's chest, not saying a word or acknowledging what just happened. Charlotte tries to make her face as neutral as possible.

"Yeah, especially since I pretty much  _invented_  hugs," Bayley chimes in, setting down the ice pack she'd gotten and making her way over. "It's just downright disrespectful, really."

Charlotte then almost  _feels_  Sasha roll her eyes against her shoulder, back to normal so quickly, somehow.

"How about you guys stop talking and get over here then. You babies."

Becky and Bayley do as she says. And even though they're unaware of the situation they'd walked in on, they can still sense how the air feels, so, instead of piling on behind Sasha, they make their way around Charlotte and engulf her in their arms, almost like they think Charlotte needs to be held from all sides, smothered in love and stuck in the middle.

And Charlotte is still too useless to do anything, to move or resist.

She feels like she doesn't deserve to have them embracing her. She feels like she just sabotaged her best friends' relationship, despite how hard she had been trying  _not to_. 

She feels selfish, and guilty, and like she's suffocating. 

But she stays until they let go, because that selfishness is still so hard to overcome. 


	3. I just wanna scream out (till my voice breaks)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I just wanna scream out till my voice breaks,
> 
> Even if the tears fall, and my heart hates me.
> 
> I just wanna know how I can save me,
> 
> Even if these three words choke and take me.
> 
> Baby, I love you."
> 
> -I Love You, Little Mix-
> 
> Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/sammm52/playlist/16JCpdKYds2kEH7BL44jyp?si=jylOU2XCS6iHFx1mlhZvzQ

After the day of the kiss, Charlotte's avoidance becomes more blatant. It becomes more _real_.

It becomes a weird and uncomfortable dance of ducking into corners and dodging any circumstances that will place them together. 

It's a bunch of twists and turns and twirls, and it's all to make sure that she doesn't have to look at their faces for longer than necessary.

(Which is ironic, because she loves their faces. But she just can't find it in herself to face _them_.)

So, she lies and says that she can't ride with them because Creative suggested for her not to for a while.

She avoids eye contact from across the room, she straight up ignores text messages and phone calls and facetimes. She leaves an area before anybody else can, in order to make sure she's not alone with any of them. 

Whenever she feels their gazes on her, she does a marvelous job of pretending she's numb to them. 

And they, of course, are very confused and very hurt, even more so than before. 

The first texts from Sasha look something like: ' _We need to talk. Stop avoiding me._ '

But, eventually, they morph into: ' _Charlotte, please.'_

And Charlotte still doesn't give in. She just clutches at her phone and curls in on herself on her bed, swallowing the bile in her throat.

When Bayley stops asking  _when_ they'll see her, and starts wondering _if_ they'll see her, Charlotte still doesn't respond, even as her fingers flex and ache to type out that she'll be there in a second.

When Becky stops calling and stops texting, stops asking what's the matter, and sends a final: ' _Okay, I'll give you space_ ,' Charlotte breaks the skin across her knuckles from how long she stands at the punching bag in the gym.

And, of course, there are many instances where Charlotte almost just gives in, where she goes to text them or call them or literally walk to their hotel room, because she's just so very _tired_ of being without them, of being unhappy. (There are many instances where she cries and remembers how they would wipe her tears. Where she shakes and remembers how they used to wrap their arms around her.)

Of course, there are many instances where she just wants to find them and collapse against them and let them hold her together, because she feels like she just can't take it anymore. Because her hands have been bleeding so profusely, so endlessly, for so long, and her grip on the pieces of herself, of her heart, seems to be almost lost. 

Of course, there are many instances where she catches sight of them and has to catch her breath, because they're just so beautiful and she just misses them so much that sometimes she feels like she could crumble into dust. 

But each time she feels these things, each instance of weakness she experiences, is always overcome by how guilty she feels, by how hopeless she feels, by how she knows that, at first, she was doing this for herself, but, now, she's doing it for them. Because they don't need a fourth wheel, a fourth corner. Triangles don't have an extra point. 

They don't need her hovering over them, and they don't need her taking up their space or their time. They don't need her distracting them from each other. 

They may think they do. They may think they need her. They may say they want her. 

But they don't. She knows they don't. She feels like maybe she's always known. 

But she's just not brave enough to _tell them_ that. 

Because she feels like if she says, "You're fooling yourself if you think you need me," they'll give her a look, then a pause, then a shrug, and reply with, "You're right."

She's scared that if she says, "You can survive without me," she'll get a matter of fact, "Not only survive. We can also _live_."

She's scared of them cutting her off in the same way that she's cutting _them_ off, and she knows that's selfish and self-centered, and it honestly makes her hate herself just that much more, but she can't help it. 

She can't help that she's scared of them being done with her, because, even though it _seems_ like _she's_ done with _them_ , she knows that they're _always_ going to be such integral parts of who she is. She knows that they're always going to have left such serious stains on her heart, her hands, her _skin..._

 _God_ , how her skin is stained by their touches, stained by the colors tied so intrinsically within the emotions that were felt when they were left there...

The blue palm prints on the backs of her shoulders, across the curve of her scalp, from the sorrowful clinging and comforting that happened late at night.

The green fingerprints on her hips from the very protective—almost possessive—touches that came when some random person got a little too close to her.

The bright yellows and soft oranges littered across her cheeks and forehead, her jaw and her nose, from light kisses placed there calmly, happily, hopefully.

The red hue or two around her wrists, from when an argument got too heated and she’d tried to run away—from when fingers wrapped around them to stop her, not forcefully, not harmfully, but just firm enough to make her stay. The gentle shade of purple streaked across her cheekbones from the apologetic thumbs that came afterwards.

The entire  _myriad_  of different shades of feeling on her hands...

It's all permanent. 

She’s painted with pain and pleasure, with love and loss of contact, with happiness and hurt. She’s so stained and colored by emotions and touches that aren’t hers, that she can’t even see her skin anymore; She no longer feels like her skin is _her own_ , because she knows that it’s not. She knows that it's theirs.

She knows that _she's_ theirs, and she always will be, and she'll always, _always_ come if they really, truly do need her. 

Which is why, when it's been a month since she discovered their relationship—a week since she kissed Sasha and a week since she truly started isolating herself—and her phone lights up again, after about five days of silence, she finds herself reaching for it out of curiosity. 

Her room is dark—the sun's been down for about an hour, but she's been shut up inside with the blinds closed for three. She has to blink blearily at her screen to get her vision to adjust.

The texts are as follows:

 ** _Becks <3 [8:51 PM]: _ ** _I know you don't like to answer these days, but if you see this can you please check on Bayley at some point tonight? She said she's a little sick, and to her a little is usually a lot._

 **_Becks <3 [8:51 PM]: _ ** _Sasha and I are at the press dinner thing we talked about some months ago._

 **_Becks <3 [8:51 PM]:_ ** _In case you were wondering._

It takes all of two seconds before Charlotte finds herself getting out of her bed and grabbing her room key. 

She types out: ' _Going to your room now,'_ and tries not to think about when it used to be ' _our_.' She adds: ‘ _I’ll make sure she’s okay_.’ 

She wonders briefly, as her hand hovers over the door, if Bayley is already asleep, if she's too sick to get out of bed, if she'll even let Charlotte in. 

But she knocks anyways. She shows one ounce of bravery for what feels like the first time in forever. 

Some moments pass, time feels like it drags on. There's a heavy sensation of dread in Charlotte's stomach, that she can't explain. 

She contemplates leaving but hates the thought immediately. So, she lifts her hand to knock again, but just as she's about to bring her knuckles to the wood, the door clicks and swings open. 

Charlotte feels the breath sweep out of her lungs in one whooshing sensation, as Bayley's eyes meet hers. 

Her hand hangs pointlessly in the air.

"Uh..." she stutters faintly. "Becks, um..." She clears her throat, swallows thickly. "Becky told me you were sick. Asked if I'd check on you." She puts weight on her right foot, then her left. "Can I come in?"

Bayley looks at her, like she's an enigma, a sighting of an elusive creature like a unicorn or a yeti. She tilts her head with weakly crinkled eyebrows, making the bun at the crown of it tip over just a little, precarious but holding steadfast in a way that Charlotte understands.

They stand before each other like strangers who feel familiar, and Charlotte hates it, but she stays rooted in her spot. She refuses to leave this time. 

Because as she gets a better look, she can see the paleness of Bayley's skin, the darkness around Bayley's eyes, the glossy sort of sheen that coats her irises. She can see that her lips are chapped, and she notices, suddenly, that she's got a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. 

She's shivering lightly, and she looks miserable, and Charlotte's bones ache with the want to take away all of her suffering.

She thinks, though, that Bayley might not let her. Bayley might tell her she's fine, as Charlotte's been telling _them_ any time they manage to ask.

But then Bayley nods slightly and shifts to the side to allow Charlotte entry to the room. So, Charlotte walks carefully forward into it, almost tiptoeing. 

"What do you think you've got?" she asks, her voice still low, as if to talk normally or too loudly would ruin the sanctity of their interaction.

Bayley sniffs and then coughs. 

"A cold," she answers, sounding stuffy. 

"Have you taken anything? Are you running a fever?"

Bayley shrugs then.

"Dunno. Haven't felt like getting out of the bed to do anything or check. The only reason I answered the door is because I recognized your knock."

Charlotte's chest twinges. 

"Can I—uh... Can I?" 

She gestures at Bayley's forehead with her hand, wanting to feel for the temperature of her skin. Bayley nods again, without a lot of thought, but Charlotte still hesitates for a few seconds more before following through. 

"You do feel a little warm," she says. "Do you have a headache?" Bayley nods one more time. "Okay." Charlotte withdraws her hand. "Go lay down, and I'll get you a washcloth and some Tylenol."

Bayley does what she says without resistance. She's far too tired for that, and Charlotte can tell. Charlotte won't say she's grateful for it—because she doesn't wish for Bayley to ever feel bad or sick like she does—but she does feel relieved, knowing she can just exist with the woman in the moment, without having to explain anything. 

It doesn't take her long to run one of the hotel's washcloths under the cold tap of the sink in the bathroom, and the first aid kit they always have between the four of them—the three of them now—is sitting in the same spot on the counter that Charlotte remembers, so she has the Tylenol in hand in a short timespan as well.

When she walks back out, Bayley is already laying down in one of the two full-sized beds. She's almost entirely buried underneath the covers. Her head is barely visible, her face is peeking out just enough, and Charlotte feels such a _warm_ fondness rise up in her chest that she thinks she might've caught the fever herself. 

"Here you go. Do you have water? Have you been staying hydrated?"

"Yeah."

Bayley points at the purple water bottle on the bedside table. Charlotte picks it up and offers it to her as she sits up, along with the Tylenol. She waits until Bayley has swallowed the pills and drunken a few more sips before taking it back and putting it in its previous spot. Then she lets Bayley get re-situated and resettled comfortably before laying the cool washcloth across her forehead.

"Alright," she breathes out. "Hopefully the Tylenol will break your fever soon, but if not, maybe it'll at least ease your headache a little. Do you need anything else?"

Bayley shakes her head this time, after a moment of thought. Charlotte inhales deeply.

"Okay. Get some more rest, Bay. Becky and Sasha shouldn't be gone for too much longer." She smiles, just barely. "I hope you feel better."

She reaches out to readjust the comforter over Bayley's shoulders, a thoughtless, natural action, but when she goes to draw away Bayley whispers a soft, "Char?" and reaches for her hand. She holds her in place. "Could you—?" She bites down on her bottom lip. "Will you stay? Please?" 

In the low light of the lamp, Charlotte can still see how Bayley's eyes shimmer with uncertainty. 

And it almost makes _her_ feel like the sick one.

Because she absolutely hates how it's come to this. She absolutely hates how they have _any_  uncertainty when it comes to her.

Because they used to be so sure of her dependency. They used to trust her without doubt. 

And now they don't, and it makes her want to scream.

But she doesn't, she won’t. Because Bayley is still looking at her like she wants her there. She's still looking at Charlotte like she _deserves_ to be there. She's still looking at Charlotte like maybe she's one of the reasons the sun shines in the morning.

So, Charlotte smiles quietly and gives a faint nod.

"Yeah, sweetheart, of course," she whispers, throwing a little of her caution and cares away. "Where do you want me?"

Bayley lets go of Charlotte's hand only to open her arms. 

"With me."

Charlotte nods again in less than a second.

"Okay."

She toes her slippers off and makes her way around to the other side of the bed, lifting the covers and climbing under.

Bayley scoots over to her and holds on immediately, warm—almost too warm—skin against Charlotte's cool. She presses her forehead into Charlotte's neck as soon as Charlotte returns the embrace. 

"I've got you," Charlotte murmurs into her hair, pressing a kiss to where her lips are resting because it's what she's always done when her girls are sick. "Get some rest."

Bayley hums, already drifting to sleep from exhaustion. Charlotte trails her fingertips up and down the length of Bayley's arm. Her other hand rests firmly on the woman's lower back. 

A few moments pass in calm quiet, and then Bayley inhales a big breath. 

"Thanks for checkin' on me," she mumbles, into Charlotte's chest. "You didn't have to."

Charlotte’s grip tightens just a little. 

"Of course I did. You know I'll always be here when you really need me."

Bayley makes a soft, sleepy noise.

"Always really need you," she then says in response, slow and slightly slurred. "Always miss you when you're not 'round."

The sudden swelling of the lump in her throat prevents Charlotte from answering before Bayley's fully drifted off into unconsciousness. 

She has to bite down on her tongue to try to give herself a more immediate, more physical, sense of pain to focus on, just so that the one in her bones doesn't roll through her as a sob and wake the other woman up. 

And she isn't really sure how long she lies there, holding Bayley and staring around at the inside of the room, their room, but it's enough for her to feel that melancholy ache of nostalgia in her chest intensify. As she sees the suitcases and clothes that used to sit right beside hers. As she sees the spot on the table where their water bottles are situated, and how there's still a spot between Becky and Sasha's for her own. 

She isn't sure how long she lies there, holding Bayley and wishing that the moment wasn't going to be a rare blip in the timeline, but, apparently, it's long enough for her to fall asleep too, before she can remember that she's supposed to leave. 

Because the next thing she's aware of is the sound of movement in the room around her, causing her to stir and crack her eyes open.

Her mind is hazy with confusion at first, as she tries to remember where she is. Panic instinctively jumps up to grab hold of the breath in her lungs.

Her muscles move a little, as if to move her away, but then she recognizes the sensation of an arm curled around her waist and freezes.

A second passes, and she remembers. She glances down to where Bayley has tightened her grip with a frown on her face, unconscious and instinctive, and she brings a soothing hand up to the strands of hair at the back of her head to make sure she stays asleep. 

Then she looks around to see what woke her. 

The shadowy figure standing at the side of the bed is easily recognizable, even in the darkness—the lamp must've been turned off. Charlotte could draw it with her eyes closed. 

Some of that panic that had passed pulses dully through her again, in the ever-present way that it seems to linger these days.

"Hey," she says, her voice slightly hoarse with sleep. "Sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep. She, uh... She wanted me to stay."

Becky takes a step forward, just enough for Charlotte to see her eyes.

"It's okay."

Charlotte swallows around the urge to clear her throat uncomfortably. 

"Here," she says quietly, instead, shifting as if to allow Becky to take her place as Bayley's pillow. "I'll let you..."

Bayley's arms once again go firm around her, locking in and refusing to let her go without a fight. Charlotte glances down at them and then back up at Becky.

And it's still hard to make out the other woman's features in the darkness, but Charlotte's had them memorized for longer than she can remember existing. So, the softness in them is unmistakeable. But so is the sadness—faint, tinted, but there, like an overhanging cloud.

"I don't think _she'll_ let _you_ , lass," comes the whispered response. 

Charlotte swallows again.

"I've gotta..." 

 _Go_ , she wants to say. _Escape_.

That sadness in Becky's face becomes more solid.

"You can," she says, knowingly. "But you don't have to."

Charlotte's throat bobs this time. She feels Bayley start to stir before she can think of her next move.

"Hey," comes the sleepy utterance, as Bayley looks barely aware of the world but just aware enough to see Becky's arrived.

Becky's gaze loses that sadness it held when looking at Charlotte—or maybe it just tucks it away. She tilts her head some and reaches out to brush her hand across Bayley's forehead, pausing briefly to check her temperature and then trailing her touch down to her cheekbone. 

"Hey. How ya feelin', love?" 

Bayley shrugs as best as she can. 

"Little better. Where's Sash?"

"She decided to stay a little later. She shouldn't be too long now though."

Bayley hums.

"Mkay." 

Becky and Charlotte's expressions are similar in their fondness.

"You comin' to bed?"

Becky shows some hesitation for the first time, glancing to Charlotte briefly then back to Bayley.

"Um..."

Charlotte takes her cue.

"Here," she says, like before.

She once again moves to get up, but Bayley still doesn't release her from her grip. When their eyes meet, Charlotte is greeted by a frown.

"You said you'd stay."

"W-Well, yeah. Up until th—."

"So, stay," Bayley instructs, simply, like it is indeed the simplest thing in the world. 

It's not, but Charlotte wishes it was. She thinks that, maybe this once, it can be. 

Because, truly, she always finds it hard to argue with Bayley, who never has bad intentions, but _sick_ Bayley, or _sad_ Bayley, is nearly impossible to deny anything to.

So, she lets out a short sigh, meeting Becky's eyes from over Bayley's head and giving a subtle, barely there nod. 

Becky recognizes it for what it is. 

She moves around to the other side of the bed and climbs under the covers. Charlotte feels horribly out of place, when she used to feel so fitting.

Becky acts like she's going to try to keep her distance, out of respect for Charlotte, out of fear of scaring her off, something. But then Bayley reaches back, with one of her arms, to weakly tug her closer, and Becky gives in and scoots over.

"Get some more sleep, lass," she whispers, almost sending a shiver down Charlotte's spine indirectly. 

Bayley doesn't have to be told twice. She starts to drift off just as quickly as she did before, when Charlotte said almost the same thing. 

Charlotte just blinks at a spot on the ceiling. 

Eventually, the weight of Becky's gaze eases off of her, as she falls asleep as well. 

And Charlotte is left with the option of leaving once again. 

She bites down on her bottom lip and turns her head to blink at the semi-blurred numbers of the clock that read: **11:53 PM**. 

She wonders where Sasha is. If she's on her way back. 

She excuses her reluctance to go by giving in to the worry she feels whenever she's unsure of any of their locations. She says she'll just stay awake and wait until Sasha's back, and safe, before returning to her own room.

It isn't her plan to fall back asleep. It's not her intention. 

It's just been so long since she's actually fallen into a sleep that was restful, since she's been soothed by the sounds of their breathing and the feeling of them beside her, that her control over her consciousness slips. 

So, the next time she's aware of the world, it's because she startles awake involuntarily. The confusion from the first time returns. So does the panic. 

Cold, gripping tendrils of a bad dream, a dream of them laughing in her face, telling her that her love is worthless to them, makes her muscles ache and refuse to let go of their stiffness. 

She notices that she's no longer being held close, kept in place, and that Bayley had turned to lie across Becky at some point, leaving Charlotte on the edge of the bed. She also notices that Sasha's now lying on the far side of the mattress; Her arm is slung over Becky's waist as well, her fingers resting against Bayley's wrist.

And, where as, before all of this, Charlotte would've just turned on her side and hugged Bayley from behind in her own sleep, thinking nothing of it. _Now_ , Charlotte is struck by the image. 

It nearly takes her breath away, as it has so many other times before. Because she truly loves them so much, and it feels like it's been so long since she's seen them in their most unguarded state, since she's seen them asleep and vulnerable. 

It's been so long, and so the sight is so powerful in its mundaneness, in its domesticity.

And when Sasha shifts a little, presses her nose into Becky's jaw a little, Charlotte feels a sudden, fierce, _protective_ feeling creep up the back of her neck, making the hairs on her skin stand up. 

 _They deserve better than this_ , she thinks. _Better than me._  

They deserve better than to have their best friend rendered incapable of being around them because of feelings they can't help. They deserve better than to have their best friend incapable of pushing those feelings aside for their sake. They deserve better than to have their best friend be selfish and act on those feelings with one of the people in their relationship.

 _They deserve better than her_.

They deserved to be protected from every bad thing in the world, and, before, it was Charlotte who tried to do that. It was Charlotte who would take the burden if she could. It was Charlotte who was the protector. 

But now she needs to protect them from herself.

So, she finally slips out from under the covers, registering that the clock now reads: **2:46 AM**.

She quietly, _carefully_ puts her slippers back on, and then she grabs her phone from off the table that's situated between the occupied bed and the empty bed.

She wants to stay and look at them for just a while longer, but she's scared that if she does, she won't have the strength to leave. 

So, she doesn't glance back as she goes. 

She doesn't look at anything but her feet until she reaches her hotel room. 

Numbly, she's able to register getting inside, and, numbly, she's able to register making her way into the bathroom.

It takes her longer to recognize that her hands are shaking, though. 

When she does, she reaches down and grips the edge of the counter at the sink. She stares at her reflection.

She stares at the paleness of her skin. The almost bruised skin of her eye sockets. The way her cheekbones look a little sunken. 

"God, when did you get so pathetic?" she asks suddenly, her voice bouncing and echoing off the tile around her, for no one else to absorb and take the weight of. 

She meets her own eyes. 

 _"Ocean eyes,"_  Becky used to say.  _"Sometimes they're blue, sometimes they're green, but they're always swirling with somethin' spectacular."_

She scoffs. 

The only thing they're swirling with now is exhaustion. Defeat. Heartache.

They're shattered, made up of shards of sadness, maybe not even swirling anymore, and she can't stand the sight of them, she can't stand the sight of herself.

So, she turns away before she has the chance to do something reckless and impulsive like punch the glass, to make her reflection match the broken shards in her eyes.

She stumbles back out of the bathroom and to her bed, but she doesn't fall back asleep for almost another hour. 

Because she never can rest very well without them beside her.

She knows she never really will.

\---

None of them talk about the diversion from the new normal afterwards. 

Charlotte still keeps up her dodging, and they still take it without much fight, because she told them she needed to deal with her issues alone, and they've always respected that.

So, she still spends her nights alone in her hotel room, feeling regretful and sick and like all that's good in her life has been simultaneously taken from and ruined by her own hands.

She works out alone, she eats alone, she sleeps alone. 

Time blurs together.

Four more days pass, and she still doesn't feel any better. She realizes she hasn't healed at all since that first day. (Which is the whole point of the distance, right?)

She moves around backstage like a zombie. She ignores any looks she gets, that are pitying or confused or whatever else people feel like she deserves to see on their faces, and she keeps her head down. 

(She's always keeping her head down.) 

Her eyes are always on her feet. She's always focusing on where she's going in order to ignore where she had been and where she  _could be_  if she was with them. 

So, when her head comes up at the sound of a familiar chorus of laughter on one of the days, as she tries to slip through catering, it's because of nothing but instinct. It's only because she's so in tune with the sounds of their laughs, and it's only because it's been so long since she's heard them.

And seeing the three of them smiling together, joking around, makes her lips upturn naturally. It's the most effective way to lift her mood, always.  

It softens her up and makes her feel more like her old self, when she let herself be vulnerable because of them, instead of fortifying herself against them.

It brings the familiar butterflies to her stomach, instead of the newer nausea she's become accustomed to, and it's a welcome reprieve.

But then Bayley—healthier and healed—reaches over to brush something from Becky's cheek, and that nausea resurfaces, for no other reason than the familiarity of the action.

She watches the way fondness shines through Bayley and Sasha's expressions—Becky's back is to her—and she clenches her jaw. She surmises that maybe she's been standing in her spot for too long, and then she knows she has when Sasha glances up and catches sight of her.

As soon as their eyes meet, Charlotte flashes back to a week and a half before. 

She remembers Sasha's kiss, and a shaky breath falls from her lips.

She tries to pretend that it's not all she's been thinking about, but she fails.

Her head suddenly feels light, and when Sasha shifts her facial expression, like she's trying to communicate something, Charlotte is still just so full of remorse and sadness and longing that she can't read the woman like usual. A second passes, and then she has to tear her gaze away, because she can't shake the feeling of absolute shame that's been consuming her, eating her alive in a way that it wasn't before the kiss.

Because it's one thing to feel guilty for being in love with and being incapable of feeling happiness for the three of them. But it's an entirely _separate_ issue of 'Wow, you really are a horrible person,' when Charlotte thinks about how she can't get the moment of Sasha's lips pressed against her own out of her mind. 

So, she ducks her head and ducks out of catering before another minute slips away. (She ducks out too soon, too quickly and abruptly, to see the look of guilt flash across  _Sasha's_  face.)

\---

The next day, an off day between two live shows, she doesn't even leave her hotel room to hit the gym.

She feels more drained than usual—even more drained than she has been lately—and that might have something to do with the lack of sleep she'd gotten the night before. It might have something to do with the fact that she'd accidentally stumbled across an old video of her, Becky, Sasha, and Bayley that made her cry... A video of them laughing that sent her spiraling and made her sob more harshly than she had in a while. 

It's most definitely because she didn't let sleep take hold of her until the clock on her bedside table read ' **5:00 AM** ' in bright green letters.

And she'd figured, as she blinked her eyes open at 9 in the morning, four hours later, that she's worked hard enough to afford one full day off, without workouts or plannings or training. 

So, she spends her day in her room—alone, of course—and it's only when it's almost 11 pm, that she decides she's had  _enough_  of feeling tired and broken and  _numb_.

It's as she watches some National Geographic documentary about adrenaline junkies, that she thinks that she might lose her mind if she doesn't feel something other than her heartache soon.

Because as some crazy, _reckless_ man who just free dove off of a whole fucking cliff looks at the camera and says: "If you're not feeling alive, then why are you livin'?" It feels like he's talking directly to her. 

And she feels like she doesn't have an answer to give him at all.

So, she decides to  _truly_  use her night off and go to a local bar. To find something that'll make her feel a little more alive, if only for a little bit.

She throws on some jeans, a white t-shirt, and a leather jacket and heads out of the door before she can even think too much about it. (Before she can realize how out of character she's acting.)

The bar she'd found on her maps is only about a block away, so she walks, and almost as soon as she gets inside the building, she gets a couple of shots in her.

You could say it's to try to loosen up, to try to drown it out, but it's really whatever.

It really doesn't matter why.

The only important thing is that the burn feels better than the break in her heart.

Some time passes, her shoulders get less tense, her limbs loosen up. She finds herself laughing at some lame joke the bartender tells her, and if she had been more sober, she would've been shaken at the thought that it's the first time she's truly laughed in a month. If she'd been more sober, she would've thought about how it's the type of joke Becky likes to tell.

But she doesn't have the care or the time for that, because then she notices a stranger on the other side of the counter looking at her, not like she recognizes her, but like she wants her. And it only takes about one more shot before Charlotte finds herself pressing the woman— _Audrey? she said. Aubrey?_ —up against a wall outside the club. 

The night—early morning—air is cool, but she feels like she's burning up from the inside out. She feels like there's a fire in her chest trying to consume her whole, and the only way to stifle it, to tamp it down, is to drown herself in the feeling of someone else against her.

So, she tries to focus on the foreign pair of lips, on the way the woman's hands feel underneath her jacket, underneath her shirt, against her skin. She tries to lose herself and her problems in the short gasps and moans passed between them.

But she just keeps imagining  _them—their_  eyes,  _their_  lips,  _their_  hands on her—and it absolutely drives her insane.

So, she presses in more, as Audrey’s fingers come up to scratch lightly at her scalp. She brings her hands down to grab Audrey’s legs and hoist them up and around her waist, using the wall to support the woman's weight.

She pulls her head back some, but it's only so that she can instead start to trail her lips down the woman's neck. 

And it still feels wrong. It's definitely not right.

And, yes, she does know, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she's going to hate herself in the morning, when it's all said and done. 

But when the breathless question of "Your place or mine?" is directed at her, she says a quick "Mine."

Because self-sabotaging is what she's best at.

Because she just wants to get them out of her head for a little bit.

Because she, maybe, feels like she deserves to.

\---

When the morning sun rays fall across her eyelids, their brightness is persistent and painful. ( _Punishing_ , she thinks.)

They're rousing and rude, and she finds she definitely will not be able to make her way back into the realm of sleep, so she, instead, cracks her eyes open and blinks blearily at the world around her. 

And it takes her a moment to get her bearings, but as soon as she notices that she's not alone, white-hot panic overwhelms her. Her eyes widen, and she pulls away some instinctively to try to get a look at the person sitting up against the headboard beside her. 

She squints and narrows her eyes, as flashes of moments and feelings and touches swirl through her mind. Realization settles within her.

She lifts her hands to her face, pressing her palms into her eyes and her fingers into her aching forehead.

"Oh my god," she groans.

There’s a beat, then... 

"Don't worry, love," comes a smooth voice, that she can vaguely recognize from the night before. "We didn't end up sleeping together."

Charlotte's breath catches. 

"We didn't?" she asks, peeking out from behind one of her hands.

The woman— _Audrey? Aubrey? Damn, Charlotte, get it together_ —lets out a light chuckle.

"No. We got back here, and got  _pretty_  close, but then you said you couldn't do it. You were nice enough to let me stay since it was about two in the morning. We talked until about 4."

Charlotte feels a flood of relief overwhelm her veins, heavy and hot. 

"Oh, thank god." She cringes at her own words. "No offense."

"None taken," comes the wave of a hand. "You told me all about your situation. Being in love is tough. I get it. I'm dealing with something similar."

Charlotte nods, not having the emotional or physical stability to find another verbal response other than, "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it," Audrey replies. "I still had a good time."

A small ghost of a smile flits across Charlotte's lips, as she starts to push herself up into a sitting position. She, once again, lets out an involuntary noise of discomfort as the throbbing in her head intensifies. 

"Here. I got you some water and some aspirin. Figured you could use it just as well as I could."

Charlotte mumbles another few words of gratitude before popping the pain killers into her mouth and downing the water greedily. She leans over and places the empty cup on her bedside table before glancing back over her shoulder at the other woman. 

"How are you not dying right now? How long have you been up?"

"I've been up for about thirty minutes, and, believe me, I don't feel the best. I might've even thrown up in your bathroom, but I made it to the toilet."

Charlotte looks skyward, as her brain tries to wrap around the sequence of events that her life currently is. 

She inhales and exhales one, two, three breaths as she tries to will the world to stop swaying a little bit. 

"Do you know what time it is?"

"Yeah, it's about—."

A sharp, haphazard pattern of knocks interrupts the answer. Charlotte winces. 

"I got it," she says quietly.

It takes about two seconds for her to find the will to make herself stand up, and as soon as she does, she stumbles a little bit. 

"You good?" Audrey asks, also seeming to have the same idea of standing and getting more properly dressed. 

"I got it. I got it."

A light chuckle is all she gets in response. 

There's four more raps on the door.

"I'm coming!" Charlotte calls. "Give me a second!"

She clumsily pulls on some sweatpants that were lying on the chair by the bed, and, though they hang low, they're better than wearing no pants at all, so she just keeps moving. 

There's another knock, and she feels some frustration bubble up beneath her skin, because  _do these people have no chill? Seriously._

She turns the handle and has to blink at the brightness of the lights from the hallway to get her vision to start working again. 

The three figures that come into focus make dread immediately solidify within her. 

 _Shit_.

"Well, it's about time you made an appearance,  _your majesty,_ " is the first thing Sasha says, sharply. "Did you have a nice beauty sleep?"

Charlotte flinches. Her head is still killing her far too fully for that amount of volume. 

"Sash, can you lower your voice, like, just a tad, please? My head's going to explode."

"No," Sasha immediately snaps. "Because it's currently twelve in the afternoon, and you needed to be at the arena with us almost two hours ago to get ready for the eight woman tag match we have tonight and for your match tomorrow against Nia. But, instead, you're here, not answering calls and texts like usual, looking the most hungover I've ever seen you. So, no, you don't deserve for me to lower my voice."

Charlotte swallows thickly. Her throat feels dry again.

"Damn," she exclaims. She had totally forgotten about her schedule for the morning. "'M sorry. I totally forgot. Just give me like thirty minutes, and I'll be ready to go."

Sasha's jaw ticks fiercely. Becky and Bayley stand behind her with their arms crossed, looking equally as pissed off and over it. 

Charlotte thinks it can't get much worse until she tries to get a crick out of her neck and turns her head too much to the right. 

"Is— _Is that a_   _hickey,_ Charlotte?" comes Becky's abrupt question. 

Charlotte freezes.

She wishes she could catch a break for  _once_. 

"Uh..." 

She blanks on what to say.

Luckily for her, she's saved from having to find a response. 

But, unluckily for her, it's because the sound of a dull thud reverberating from within the room draws all of their attention to it. 

So, Charlotte swears to no one but herself. 

She's never hated her life more fully than she does in the next moment, when she calls out a hoarse "Are you alright?"

Except for, maybe, when another one passes, and no answer comes. So, she's forced to resign herself to having what is shaping up to be one of the worst mornings of her existence. 

She sighs.

"Hey," she calls, walking back into the room. "Are you alright?"

"Oh," Audrey exclaims, as Charlotte stops beside the bed. "Yeah. Sorry. I tripped a little on the comforter." She glances around. "Do you happen to see my shirt anywhere?"

Charlotte swallows thickly.

_Geez, how close did she mean by "we got pretty close?"_

Charlotte hears their footsteps stop at the edge of the main room's threshold. She can feel their gazes boring holes into her. She realizes that Audrey is wearing one of her merch shirts, and the back of her neck burns a little.

"Uh..." She glances around the immediate space around her. "What color was it again?"

Audrey chuckles. 

"Purple, babe."

Charlotte nods. She's thankful that her back is to the other three occupants of the room, because they would've seen how her throat bobbed at the term of endearment if it wasn't. 

"Right, um..." She spots a clump of purple fabric slung haphazardly over the air conditioner under the window. "There it is."

Audrey looks to where she's pointing and goes over to grab it.

"You don't have to change now. You can just keep my shirt," Charlotte says, just wanting to get the two parties out of the vicinity of one another, not caring how all the clothing items ended up where they are. 

Audrey flashes her a smile.

"Thanks, beautiful."

Charlotte finds herself nodding again. She pointedly avoids looking over at their three observers as she grabs Audrey's purse and holds it out for her.

"Here," she says quietly, as Audrey straightens up, with her shoes now on and her jacket covering Charlotte's shirt. "Do you want me to call you a cab?"

"No, that's alright. I can walk back to my apartment. Thank you though."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Positive." 

Audrey takes her purse from Charlotte's hands before leaning up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to Charlotte’s cheek. She turns her head so she can whisper, “Good luck,” and then she's moving away.

"Excuse me," she says politely to Sasha, Becky, and Bayley, who part the way for her with unreadable expressions on their faces. 

The sound of the door closing behind her is very reminiscent of the sound of the last nail being hammered into a coffin. Her coffin. 

She bounces her gaze around every object in the room that's not the three of them.

The silence that settles over them is heavy and  _uncomfortably_  warm, and Charlotte honestly, truly wishes that the floor could just open up and swallow her whole. 

But it remains solid underneath her feet, and it's truly the only thing grounding her to the Earth, as her brain still feels like it's swaying in her skull. 

"You've got thirty minutes to get ready and meet us downstairs," Sasha finally breaks the quiet, in a voice that's cold and hard enough to crack Charlotte back open. 

"Alright," Charlotte says, barely audible. 

She waits until their footsteps recede fully down the hallway before collapsing to sit on the edge of the bed. 

She spends about fifteen minutes of her time just trying to get herself to not cry.

The car ride to the arena is one of the stiffest atmospheres Charlotte's ever existed within, and she doesn't know if she's ever been happier than she is when the vehicle stops and she can flee to go warm up on her own.

Or, really, she thought she could flee to go warm up on her own.

But then a hand latches onto some of the excess fabric at the back of her hoodie, stopping her short in her momentum forward, and she's stuck.

She glances back over her shoulder to see Becky standing behind her, still looking far too detached for Charlotte's sanity, and she crinkles her eyebrows in response.

She only gets a shake of the head as a form of an answer, but it's enough to convey: ' _No bullshit today. You have to stay._ '

So, she lets out a sigh and lets her shoulders slump. 

Becky recognizes the signal of Charlotte's defeat—her  _surrender_ —so she lets go. She moves away, and Charlotte is left to trail behind the three of them like a sad dog that knows they're wrong but wishes they weren't. 

\---

The rest of the day seems to go by slow and fast all at once, and soon enough, the eight woman tag match is over, and they're all backstage again, standing in the locker room and preparing to leave without saying any words to one another.

It's a painful and stark contrast to how they used to be, to how Charlotte remembers them existing, and, though she knows it's her fault things are the way they are, she wishes, for this fleeting moment, that they weren't. 

And maybe that's because, now, she's not only let her feelings—and her inability to deal with them—affect her friendship with them, but she's also let it affect her work,  _their_  work. And if there's one thing she always swore to herself, it was that she'd never let her personal issues affect her work or the work of those around her. 

So, she decides that she can swallow her pride, ignore her own hurt, for this time being. 

Though she thinks it might kill her. 

She clears her throat some, faces them but can't meet their eyes when they shift their attention to her. 

She lifts her hand to rub at the back of her neck, her nervous tick, her tell. 

"Uh..." She searches for the right words to say, and she hates that she never used to have this problem with them before. "I, um, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."

She chances a glance up, and the way that they seem surprised, not pleasantly but interestedly, is a little too much for her to process. 

"I-I know that you're upset with me for being super late and unorganized today, and I feel awful for putting you guys in a position that could jeopardize any part of your careers, even if it is just one match. I know that it was very unprofessional and rude of me to not show up this morning, so I—I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I promise."

There's a pause, intense and charged.

Charlotte's about to just turn around and accept that they're not ready to forgive her until, "God, is that  _really_  what you think we're upset about?" is what Becky asks, sounding disbelieving and almost desperate.  _"Really?"_

Charlotte stutters to find the right words. 

"W-Well, yeah. What else would you be—?"

Becky scoffs then, shaking her head, and Sasha lets out a mirthless laugh. Bayley just looks defeated.

Charlotte's eyebrows furrow.

"You're something else, Charlie," Becky remarks, and the use of her nickname in such a sarcastic way, in a way that's not soft, makes Charlotte's stomach roll. "You really are."

Charlotte looks between the three of them before her. She notices how they all look so connected in their sudden surrender to whatever's been troubling them, and she realizes that now it's her that's on the outside. She realizes that now it's her who's not in the know of what's going on, and she realizes she hates it, but still not enough to admit that her indignation is a little hypocritical. 

"I'm—I..." Her mind is moving at rapid pace to try to keep up. "Is it because I had someone in my room when you came?" They stare at her silently, an answer in and of itself. "You  _can't_  be serious. Why does  _that_  matter to you?"

Becky and Bayley glance down and away, with a hardening of their jaws. Sasha crosses her arms over her chest and shifts her gaze to the side some, in the way that Charlotte recognizes as how she tries to shield herself. 

Charlotte just continues to look at them. Because she knows that something's running deeper than the surface. 

When she eventually concludes that they're not going to tell her what it is, she just lets out a huff of air and gives up. (She has enough self-awareness to know that it would be unfair of her to ask them to share, when she hasn’t been returning the favor.)

”Okay, whatever,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to tell me.” 

She starts to turn away. She even gets her bags in her hands and takes two steps. 

But then, “So, you’re gonna run away again?” sounds out from behind her, and it makes every muscle and nerve in her body still. “Do you know when you’re next gonna grace us with your presence, Queenie?” 

Charlotte feels irrational, unfounded irritation prickle at her skin, but she tamps it down. 

She pivots back around on her heel calmly, her face blank. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asks, like she doesn’t know. 

Becky’s eyes narrow at her. 

“You know exactly what it means. Don’t play dumb, Charlotte.” 

“I’m not, Becky. I seriously don’t know what you mean because I’m _not_ running. You don’t want to tell me what’s bothering you, and I’m respecting that. That’s what friends are supposed to do."  

“Oh, is that what we are? _Friends_?” 

“Yes,” Charlotte answers, slowly. 

Sasha scoffs.

”Couldn’t tell.” 

Charlotte’s the one who squints in displeasure this time. She feels some of that raw, real, _ragged_ emotion that’s been brewing within her start to surface, dangerously, and it takes all that she has not to let it come spilling out. It takes every ounce of willpower she's ever known to not lash out at them, to not take out her heartache and upset on them.

Because she knows they don't deserve it.

So, the only indication of her reaction that she lets show is the ticking of her jaw. 

She inhales a slow breath through her nose and glances over to the clock on the wall.

"I have to go," she says, still so neutral.

" _Where_?" Becky asks, showing so much emotion in the absence of Charlotte's. " _Where_ are you going that won't still be there in a few minutes? _Who_ are you meeting with that's so important? That's more important than _us_?"

She gestures at the three of them then. At Bayley who can't even seem to look at Charlotte, at Sasha who is looking at Charlotte like she almost doesn't know who she is, and at herself, now standing a few feet away and nearly crying. 

Charlotte bites down on her tongue. 

"What did we _do_ to have you standing here like you can't even stomach the _sight of us_ , Charlotte? How did we hurt you?"

Charlotte's grip tightens on the handle of her suitcase; she's afraid the plastic might crack underneath her fingers. She leans a minuscule amount of weight on it, just to ease the burden a little. 

She feels like she might throw up, and she knows she needs to escape soon to keep her chances of ensuring they don't see her breakdown at a high.

"I told you," she begins, low and controlled, _barely_ controlled. "You didn't do anything. I just need to deal with some stuff on my own."

"And we've let you do that," Bayley finally says, sounding less scathing than Becky and Sasha but so, _so_ tired. "But it's obviously not working." Charlotte opens her mouth to refute. "What, you think we don't see how miserable you are?" Charlotte's mouth snaps shut. "Just because you've stopped paying attention to us doesn't mean we've returned the favor."

 _If only that were true_ , Charlotte thinks. _If only there were anything else to pay attention to._  

"I'm fine," is what she says instead, a deflection that she knows stopped being effective a long time ago. "And it's—it's not _personal_ , guys, I just—."

"Well, it _feels_ _pretty_ fucking personal, Charlotte," Sasha interrupts, her voice biting, piercing Charlotte's skin with each syllable. "And since _when_ has our relationship with you ever _not_ been personal? Do you even remember when we used to be strangers?" Sasha's leaning forward in her seat now. She looks like she wants an answer, but Charlotte knows she's not done. "We're the last ones you can be saying 'It's not personal' to, and you know it. _Everything_ between us is personal, and you _know it_. So, don't pull that shit."

Charlotte grinds her teeth together. 

She doesn't have an answer to give them. She knows she'll be lying again if she even tries to say one, and she hates how many times she's done that with them already.

Because she used to always tell the truth, only tell the truth, with them. They used to be the only ones she would never lie to. 

So, she remains silent. But that doesn't seem to be the right thing to do either. 

“ _God_ , Charlotte," Bayley suddenly exclaims, startling her. "Can you just show _some_ emotion? _Please_? Can you stop acting like we're some random outsiders trying to pry into your life for just a _few_ seconds?" 

 _No_ , Charlotte thinks. _Because it would mean everything would come spilling out_.

Bayley's eyes are teary now too, like Becky's. 

"Charlotte," she says again, like someone recognizing a tragedy's happened. "We’re your—we’re  _supposed to be_  your _best friends_. We're supposed to be your—your _people_. We _were_ your people, we thought." She shakes her head lightly. "But—But now you've cut us off and left us hanging like you _hate us_ , and we just want to know _why_. Don't you think we at least deserve to know _why_?"

And Charlotte has to press her nails into the skin of her palms, to keep herself from telling them that they deserve everything she can't give them. 

Bayley lets out a breath, almost a sob, that shakes her body, and Charlotte wants so badly to take the woman into her arms.

"Just—If you're going to keep doing this, if you don't want anything to do with us anymore, at least tell us why, Charlotte. We deserve that much. After everything and all that we've been through? We deserve that."

And maybe it's the defeat, the surrender, the lack of fight, in Bayley's voice. Maybe it's the sorrow in Becky's face. Maybe it's the slump in Sasha's shoulders.

But, just like before, Charlotte can't find it within herself to lie. She can't even think of one. 

Because Bayley's right. 

Charlotte had known they deserved better. She just hadn't known that part of that was them deserving to know _why_. 

She had assumed—foolishly perhaps—that they would just take the sudden loss of her company like a change in the weather: A momentary feeling of discomfort, but an adjustment that would be easy to make. 

She had assumed that their relationship with one another would make up for the deterioration of their relationship with her.

She had assumed, pretty much, that they would miss her, of course, but that they would be able to move on without really questioning why, and she realizes now that she had been wrong.

She realizes now that maybe her place in their lives was a little bigger than she thought.  

And she concludes that even though they're not going to like the answer they get, they  _do_  still deserve to hear it.

So, she inhales a shaky breath through her nose. 

She tries to find some bravery within herself, some courage that perhaps she can suddenly find and channel into her jaw, that she can work into the words she's trying to say. The three words that she's been _dying_ to say and dying _because of_ for longer than she can even remember. 

But she comes up short. She's not sure she can go through with it. 

She lets her eyelids slide shut, squeeze tight. 

"Char—."

"I love you," she breathes out finally, almost a gasp, rasped and ragged. 

The room goes shockingly silent, disconcertingly still. 

Charlotte's chest heaves. 

"Wha—?" 

"I'm _in love_ with you." She blinks her eyes back open and is grateful she can't see them through her tears. "All of you." A sort of sob, sort of sigh rattles her ribcage. Her voice breaks. "And I—I just—I didn't know, I  _don't_ know, of another way to deal with it." Her face contorts, it starts to crumble. All of the emotion she'd been pushing down, pushing away, hiding under blankets and in corners, starts to surface. "I _thought_ I did. I thought I had dealt with it and come to terms with it, but then I heard you talking in the locker room, about how you were trying to figure out how to tell me that you were all together, and I just—I realized that I _wasn't_ at peace with it. Not at all. And I didn't know how to face it, and I didn't know how to face you, so I just did what I always do best, and I avoided it. _I avoided you_." She gets quieter. "But I am sorry. I know you didn't deserve that. I know you guys deserved to know from the start, but it's like I was so scared of losing you because of reasons I couldn't control that I just ruined everything intentionally. So at least then there'd be some sort of reason behind it all."

She suddenly lifts her hands to wipe at her face, inhaling sharply.

"God, I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry." A cracked cry falls from her lips. "I never meant to _hurt you_. I just wanted to deal with it. Get _over it_. I just wanted to be _happy_ for you. Because you _deserve_ happiness. More than any other people I know."

She curls her trembling fingers into fists. 

"And if you—if you do still want to be friends, then I just think I need some more time to actually try to cope with it. Because I haven't been coping, and I need to. And I know I don't deserve your patience, the patience you've already shown with me, but I promise I'm going to try to do better. I'm going to try to be a better friend. I just need a little more time."

Charlotte's voice is almost impossibly quiet by the time she finishes her sentence. So much so that she could barely even hear it herself, over the sound of her pulse in her ears. 

But, perhaps, more deafening than her heart pounding against her chest is the silence that follows it all. 

The silence that lasts for long, heavy moments. Drags on for what feels like forever.

The silence that Charlotte doesn't have the strength to endure. 

"I'm sorry," she says again, with feeling, too much of it to breathe around. Her legs carry her towards the door. "I'm sorry, I can't—."

"Charlotte, wait, please," Sasha calls suddenly, standing and moving around the table she’s been sitting at quickly.

Charlotte knows she's faster, her legs are longer. But Becky's able to get to her. She's able to wrap her fingers around her wrist, suddenly gentle, suddenly sure. 

"Charlie..." she breathes out.

Charlotte shakes her head.

"Please, don't," she nearly begs. She can't take the sound of their pity, their sympathy, their sorriness for her sorrow. "I promise I understand. And I really do only want you guys to be happy. I just—I just need some more time, okay? I'm so sorry."

"No, Charlotte, please. You _don't_ understand. We—."

Just then, the door opens, startlingly, and in walks Paige. Charlotte barely manages to hide her jump of surprise. 

The intrusion is like a shock to the system, a burst of a bubble. It feels like cold water being poured down her spine.

"I'm sorry ladies," Paige says. "But, Charlotte, I was told to come get you. Something about your match with Nia tomorrow needs to be reworked a little, they said."

Charlotte feels hot relief flood through her in the next second. She nearly falls to her knees and praises god for the existence of miracles.

"Alright," she says, almost normal, almost without strain. "Right now?"

Paige nods, now looking between all of them and seeming to notice she'd interrupted something. 

"Yeah," she replies, slower, more hesitant. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

"Alright," Charlotte says again, steadier, drawing it all back in. "Lead the way."

For the briefest of moments, the shortest of seconds, Becky's fingers flex around Charlotte's wrist, like they just might hold fast and refuse to let her go, like they might actually refuse to let her slip back through them. 

But Charlotte's already pulling her arm back and away, and so the indecision, the hesitance, of Becky's mind versus her gut-reaction means that she's able to escape.

Though that _doesn't mean_ she misses the almost desperate look in Becky's eyes, or the way Sasha and Bayley take a few steps forward as she makes her way to the door, almost as if to follow her, almost as if they know that if she gets away now she probably won't be back.

But Paige is standing in the hall, waiting for her, so Charlotte doesn't waste any movements. She walks purposefully forward.

It's only once she's at the threshold of the room that she pauses, to just cast one glance over her shoulder, to get a fleeting look at them.

A breath shudders through her without warning. Her shoulders nearly quiver.

She tightens her jaw. Steels her nerves. Fortifies her feelings and locks them back up.

All in the span of a second.

Then she's pushing the door open and walking away.

And it feels like she's laying waste to their relationship, even though she'd just promised the opposite. It feels like, once the door closes, the final nail will be put in the coffin.

It feels like she's burned the bridge and stepped on the ashes.

Because she's told them she loves them.

And she knows that now there's absolutely no going back to the way things were.


	4. if I risk it all (could you break my fall?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "If I risk it all, could you break my fall? 
> 
> How do I live? How do I breathe?
> 
> When you're not here, I'm suffocating.
> 
> I want to feel love run through my blood.
> 
> Tell me, is this where I give it all up?
> 
> For you, I have to risk it all.
> 
> 'Cause the writing's on the wall."
> 
> -Writing's On the Wall, Sam Smith-
> 
> Charlotte's Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/sammm52/playlist/16JCpdKYds2kEH7BL44jyp?si=ry2Q-bPsTE6uMQUsc312qQ
> 
> Becky, Bayley, and Sasha's Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/sammm52/playlist/4t2QiwLSOlpW6p9qpqtupa?si=2Ef69DYdQ1-zPb-hN_jrxg

If you were to ask Charlotte, what her favorite part about being on the road is, she would say seeing so many different sights and cities so frequently, and she, truly, wouldn't be lying.

She would say getting to experience so many new things so often. She would praise the fact that she gets to gain so much culture and knowledge about places so vastly different from North Carolina, and she wouldn't be lying.

She would say that she's infinitely blessed to be living out her dreams, and that being on the road is such an integral part of that, that she doesn't mind being home only a few times in the year.

And she wouldn't be lying. Not _technically_ , at least.

Because she does, in fact, love getting to see the cities they stop in. She does, in fact, use any amount of free time she has to explore them.

 _But_ she'd be leaving out a very crucial detail of why doing so is her favorite thing. 

And that detail is that, normally, she went and explored these cities with Becky, Bayley, and Sasha.

 _Normally_ , they soaked in the lights and the sights and the sounds _together_. 

Normally, they took turns picking where they went, and, normally, they had a system. They had _patterns_.

Sasha's pattern was that she tended to go for where the food was i.e. all the cafes and restaurants, and bars and food trucks, she'd heard about at some point. While Becky and Bayley's, on the other hand, was that they liked to choose the touristy types of attractions, like seasonal fairs, museums, city squares and marketplaces.

Charlotte, herself, never really formed much of a pattern, because she didn't really _have_  much of a preference. When it was her turn, she tended to linger in between the two. Sometimes she'd pick somewhere to eat, and sometimes she'd pick a sight to see. It just depended.

 _Normally_ , though, she let them figure it out, and she just followed along, because she didn't really care where they went—or maybe she did and it was just that she would follow them to the ends of the Earth. Maybe that was it.

Or maybe it's because she's never cared where she goes, _as long as she's with them_.

Maybe all of the above are somehow true.

She doesn't know. It doesn't matter.

Because all she knows now is that she's not with them, and they're _not_ _with her_. 

All she knows now is that their "normally" has been thrown out of the window. 

Their "normally" has been ignored for the past month and a half, meaning that Charlotte hasn't been on an outing with them in a month and a half. 

And, really, she hasn't been on an outing _at all_ in a month and a half, because the prominent loss of their presence at her sides has been too much to ignore. (She refuses to count her trip to the bar as an outing. It was more of a desperate, hopeless stumbling to a spot where she knew what she'd find. And knowing what she'd find has never been part of traveling the world with them. So, it doesn't count. Not to her, at least.)

She hasn't been on an outing without them, because the lights and the sights and the sounds don't seem to hold the same spectacle and wonder when she can't see their reactions to them. The colors and curves and lines of it all don't seem as worth it. Because everything in her world feels as if it's been made for them, so experiencing _new_ _things_ , now that they're _not_ in her world, is like committing a crime of the highest manner. 

And, honestly, she hasn't been on an outing by herself, because she simply just hasn't had the heart or the energy to do anything but what she's supposed to do in the past six weeks.

She's just been going through the motions. Eating because she has to. Sleeping so she doesn't pass out mid-match. 

That feeling of being alive, of adrenaline pumping through her veins, has been all but sucked out of her, and in the place of its absence rests a heavy exhaustion. In its place is that ache of longing, of yearning, for things to go back to "normally," when they could all joke and laugh and remember that, yeah, they were homesick, they weren't _at home_ , but they had people that  _felt like_ home, and that's a whole lot more than some have got.

It’s a whole lot more than Charlotte had ever _expected_ to have, and perhaps that’s why she had been foolish, in thinking that if she lost everything, she'd be okay if she still had them. Perhaps, Charlotte had been foolish, in believing she could lose her sanity and stability and get everything else stolen from her, but if she just _had them_ , none of that mattered. Because she had failed to realize that, maybe, they _were_ her everything. Maybe, they were all that she really _had_ to lose in the first place. 

Because, she had a career, yes, but there _were_ others out there. And she had friends, yes, but she _could_ make more. She had dreams and beliefs, _yes_ , but new ones could always be formulated.

So, while it _seemed_  like she had so much that would be devastating to lose, it was only her girls—it was only Sasha, Becky, and Bayley—that were truly irreplaceable. 

Because there were no other versions of Sasha, Becky, and Bayley in the universe. There were no other people that could fit into Charlotte's life so well. 

So, Charlotte had been foolish, plain and simple, in thinking that she had other things in her life that even came close to comparing to Sasha, Becky, and Bayley. 

And that's probably why she'd never been more shattered than when she realized they weren't hers any longer. (When she thought that maybe they never truly had been hers to begin with.)

That's probably why she was left marveling at how she had never had her legs clipped out from under her in quite the same way. 

Because she'd faced loss before—great loss, devastating loss—but she had known prior what that loss would do to her. She hadn't been prepared for it, no, but she hadn't been surprised by _how much_ it hurt; It was as painful as she had expected it would be. 

But this loss, of not just the women she loves but of her _best friends_ , has caught her off guard in how horribly it's sent her spiraling. Because she knew they were important to her, but she hadn't really realized how much of herself and her routine was made up of some aspect of them. 

And she supposes it's just another point on the list of her being oblivious, of her taking what she had for granted, of her not taking the time to fully appreciate it. 

And she knows now, looking back, that she should've predicted the amount of ruin that would be laid out around her and within her at the loss of them. 

Because when you go from thinking you're going to love these people for the rest of your life—silently and stoically, protectively and full of restraint, but still love—to realizing that you're an outsider looking in, face pressed to the window, breath fogging up the glass and tears blurring your eyes, it's bound to send even the most resilient of humans on a downward spiral. And she guesses that she had just been so caught up in how invincible they made her feel, that she forgot about how they were still the chinks in her armor. 

She guesses that she had thought of _them—_ the four of them—as invincible. She guesses that since she had always assumed that it was only threats from the outside that she needed to be concerned about, that _that's_ why she was so caught off guard by the dismantling of their structures from the inside. 

She guesses and guesses and guesses all the time. About what made her miss such an important point, but she does know, if she lets herself swallow her pride.

She does know that it's because, even through all of her intellect and college education, she’s still an idiot when it comes to other humans and their emotions. She does know that she's an idiot, in love, who should've caught on but didn't in time. She does know that it's her own stupidity that's led to all of this, and it's the feeling of shame at her own stupidity— _seeming_ stupidity—that has followed her all the way to her first outing in six weeks, followed her all the way to the pier of the city.

It's only a few hours after she'd finally freed herself from the weight of the three words her whole life seems to revolve around—the three people her whole life definitely revolves around—and, perhaps surprisingly, she doesn't feel better with the newfound lightness. 

One might _think_ that she would. One might think that finally being able to breathe without the pressure of those syllables against her heart, her ribs, the inside of her throat, would be a relieving feeling. 

But it's not. 

Because now she feels like the air she inhales is filling her up to near bursting.

Whereas, before, she felt like she was going to crumble into dust, _now_ , she feels like she could just float away. 

And, at first, yes, the breaths she took in were relieving, in a way, but, now, she can't help but wonder if being able to breathe is truly worth it without them. She thinks, still, that the weight of that love she can’t act on is preferable to bear over the reality of being so free from it that she’s empty.

And she can't help but wonder if she'll ever be able to fully recover. She thinks—she knows—she probably won't.

But, still, she didn't come to the pier to legitimately contemplate the value of living. She just came to clear her head, to change the scenery around her. 

The air is cool—brisk even—like the night before when she was at the bar. When she was burning up and couldn't escape the very flames that she ended up using to burn the bridge between them. (She is an advocate for recycling, after all.)

She's sitting on a bench, overlooking the water, feeling the sea breeze against her cheeks but not seeing much of anything else in the dark.  

She's alone and quiet, and no one is looking at her or expecting her to do anything. 

And she should feel at peace. Or, at least, less bothered.

But she doesn't.

No. Instead, her insides are caught in the same tumultuous type of current that the ocean roaring around her holds. 

Instead, her mind is wandering to times that were simpler, and times that could've been. 

Instead, she's mourning. 

She's mourning the loss of her best friends. She's mourning the loss of the " _could've been_."

How great they could've been. How soft they could've been. How groundbreaking they could've been. 

How _in love_ they could've been, if Charlotte had just been the correct fit.

It's always the "could've been," Charlotte's discovered, that's the worst part about mourning a loss. 

Startlingly, she hears laughter off to her left, and it almost feels like salt—sand, more like—in the wound.

It's added insult. A taunt. She shouldn't look, but her gaze travels over instinctively, to the group of friends sitting around a bonfire, far enough from the line of the tide to stay alight but close enough to hear the waves. 

She sees their smiles, hears their joking, and that longing in her chest sharpens, it stabs in between her third and fourth ribs.

The abrupt, unbidden thought of all the times she's wished, passingly, for the four of them to have a beach day rises to her attention.

It's suddenly all she can think about: This simple wish, that is going to go unfulfilled, un-granted. 

She thinks about how much they all deserved a day in the sun to relax and build sandcastles and be cliches without care. 

She thinks about them sitting around in the dark later on, around a bonfire too, huddled close together for warmth and for comfort even more so. 

She thinks about what it would look like.

She knows their hair would be wavy from the saltwater, damp and bound to dry with the scent of the burning wood. And they would definitely have that contently tired type of droop to their eyelids. (Bayley playing her guitar would only work to try to make them fall asleep right on the beach.) 

Their muscles and limbs would feel heavy, but it wouldn't be from the strain or stress of training. It would be from joyful exertion. It would feel fine. 

Charlotte would most likely be supporting Becky, who tends to seek her out the most when she's sleepy, to use her shoulder as her pillow. Sasha would be only a few feet away, leaning against one of the logs around the pit, her legs and arms crossed, her eyes watching Bayley's movements, and Charlotte watching her. 

Sometimes their gazes would catch, and then Sasha would glance to Becky, whose eyes would be closed, and to Bayley, whose eyes would be on her actions, and then she'd look back to Charlotte, and they would just share that moment, of feeling so lucky and so grateful all at once and together.

Because, in those earlier days, if you had told the two of them that they'd have moments to share such as those, with two other people, that they would like to argue they don't deserve, it would've been unbelievable, incomprehensible. 

And Charlotte would be so overcome by how life seems to work, that she'd curl her arm in a little tighter around Becky's waist, she'd smile a little brighter in Bayley's direction, and she'd send Sasha a knowing, familiar wink. 

And it would be perfect. Charlotte knows it would be perfect. 

Or it _would've_ _been_ perfect. 

 _Now_ , it'll never exist, and the realization of that is like another punch to her gut. 

It's enough to make her stand and start to walk away. 

And she thinks, for one second, that maybe she can leave it all there, on the bench of the pier. She thinks, for one second, that maybe she could walk to the barrier by the edge and throw all of her regrets and "could've been" wonderings into the sea. She thinks, for one second, that she could be Rose. That she could toss her heart into the ocean and let its turmoil and torrential troubles sink to the bottom. 

But then the wind blows a certain direction, sways her a different way, and she holds fast to it all instead. 

She ducks her head, blinks at her tears, and keeps walking. 

She's got to live with it for just a while longer.

She can't let it go just yet.

\---

Her match with Nia is twenty four hours after the final burning of the bridge. (Twenty hours after she tried to spread the ashes in the ocean but couldn't.)

Twenty four hours after the meeting that came just on time and was held in order to discuss the involvement of the same new girl that had injured Charlotte three weeks before. 

The meeting that made the one on one match a triple threat match.

Which was a development that, truly, only served to make Charlotte's overworked and overwhelmed nerves feel even further on edge. 

Which, honestly, made her feel uneasy, just because it was one more thing she had to be cautious of, on top of everything else.

It added another element to Charlotte's already complex equation, and she kind of, maybe hated it.

Because a big thing to know pretty early on in the wrestling business—in any business, really—is that, in order to perform at the very best of one's ability, leaving all personal afflictions and emotions outside of the squared circle, outside of the planning and preparation, is what needs to be done.

For there is no real way to focus on performing and staying safe, if the mind is clouded by things your character has no business being concerned about. There just isn't.

And Charlotte had learned this very quickly, the relatively hard way, after she obtained a small but effective injury in one of her earlier days. On a particularly bad day.

Even now, she can still remember when Sasha had been the one to press ice to her knee after, had been the one to tell her: " _Snap out of it, Baby Flair_. _You've gotta leave all thoughts out of your pretty head until after the matches. The only thing you should be thinking about is performing, keeping your partner safe, and keeping yourself safe. That's it._ " And then she had tilted her head and looked at Charlotte with those eyes, full of things that, at the time, had seemed to have to always remain unspoken. " _Got it_?" 

And Charlotte had nodded. The lesson had been learned. 

She never let her personal turmoil affect her character, or her in-ring performance and actions, following that.

Whenever she stepped out of gorilla, into the public view, she let everything melt away. Her mindset was that of Charlotte Flair: the heel, the born to be champion, the genetically superior, wheelin' dealin' heir to the Flair Family Throne. 

She did what Charlotte Flair would do. She said what Charlotte Flair would say. 

She never thought anything other than what she was supposed to, and most of the time, her matches were a blur in her memory because of that. 

But she didn't care, really. As long as she did what she was supposed to. As long as no one got hurt. 

It was technical, professional, emotional in the sense that she was doing what she loved but not in the sense of her problems overwhelming her.

And that's why her match with Nia and the new girl is out of the norm. 

That's why her match with Nia and the new girl does not go according to plan. 

Because her match with them is the _one_ match where she fails to block it all out like she usually does. The one match where she fails to ensure that the door between Charlotte and Charlotte _Flair_ is fully closed, and so things seep through the cracks, around the hinges and under the bottom. 

Things go well, relatively, beforehand. 

Her and Nia train together all day. They eat lunch together, talk about normal things, have the type of casual interactions that Charlotte's been lacking for the past month and a half. (They talk to the girl some too, to ensure that she's got all the big spots down. She tells them she's got it locked in. She won't mess up again.) 

And it's a welcome change, a reprieve almost. Charlotte’s able to forget, for the briefest of moments, only for a few minutes at a time, that she's the most heartbroken she's ever been. 

She doesn't see Becky, Sasha, and Bayley at all throughout the day, and whether that's by coincidence or by their own design, she doesn't know. (She wants to say she doesn't care, but that'd be yet another lie she's told herself.)

Either way, it's helpful in allowing her to compartmentalize her thoughts and feelings. 

She's a little steadier, more stable, than she had expected to be as she starts gearing up for the match. She's not having as difficult a time clearing her mind as she had expected, as she paces the floor of the locker room. 

She's almost fully in character by the time the fifteen minute countdown has begun.

(But this is not to say that any of it's _truly_   _easy_ , at all. Because it's not. She's still tired and drained. She still feels like she doesn't know how to rebuild the world she'd constructed around them. But still, it's maybe just a _little_ _easier,_ than expected.)

Which is why it's _absolutely_ jarring when she picks up her phone, to place it safely in her bag for the remainder of the show, and sees two texts from Sasha. 

_**Sash <3 [8:22 PM]: **We're gonna be waiting after your match, Charlotte. We need to talk. Seriously. We can't go on like this._

**_Sash <3 [8:22 PM]:_ ** _"We" includes you too._

Which is why Charlotte feels her grip on the handle slip, which is why the door doesn't close all the way. She stumbles through it but doesn't get it to click close, lock tight. 

Her fingers are already shaking mere seconds after reading the words; she had no chance of readjusting her hold on things.

The sudden dread in her stomach outweighs the adrenaline of an upcoming match, and the feeling is hard to swallow down.

The compartments and drawers and doors concealing her emotions all feel as if they've just been uprooted and unsettled by an earthquake, and she doesn't have enough time to readjust them, realign them, enough to ensure nothing will resurface at the most inconvenient time. 

Her nerves are suddenly back on the edge. Her composure wants to crack, and she's already straining to make sure it doesn't—she's been straining for a month and a half, for as long as she remembers loving them. 

She's suddenly in the very worst mindset to be in before a match, and there's nothing she can do about it because someone's opening up the door in the next second and calling for her to make her way to gorilla.

She does her best to shake it off. To push it down.

She bounces between her feet, on her toes. She throws a few phantom punches. She clenches and unclenches her fingers into fists.

She inhales steadily unsteady breaths through her nose. She tells herself to get it together.

Because never before has she let herself be affected—save for that first time, when the lesson was learned—and she'll be _damned_ if she does it now and causes any of them to get injured.

Unfortunately, the universe seems to say, "Be damned then." As if it hasn't been putting her through enough already.

Shit hits the fan about six and a half minutes in.

Before then, for six minutes and 29 seconds, things go pretty smoothly. The flow between the three of them isn't that bad. The new girl is keeping up relatively well. 

They're calling good sequences, hitting their spots. The crowd is getting into it. 

The routine and muscle memory is helping Charlotte by pretty much taking over for her, and, so, she thinks that maybe she had been too stressed for her own good. She thinks that maybe it'll all turn out fine. 

But just that simple action, of thinking about outside elements, is what makes her falter. 

" _You've gotta leave all thoughts out of your pretty head until after the_ _matches_ ," Sasha had told her. _"The only thing you should be thinking about is performing, keeping your partner safe, and keeping yourself safe. That's it."_

And Charlotte broke that basic rule, that fundamental law. 

So, when she's on the outside of the ring, standing up from her "recovery" period, she's only _fractionally_ distracted, but it's _just enough_ in their business.

She knows her outside spot is coming, she knows she needs to move quicker into her proper position. She's usually so good at having her feet in the right place at the right time. 

She's usually so perfect at making sure she's exactly where she needs to be.

But that fraction of distraction seeps out and makes her stagger a little.

She looks out into the crowd and catches a glimpse of a "Boss" sign. She sees a pair of goggles. She notices streamers on a kid's raised arms.

A draft must blow. Someone must sneeze. Something makes her stumble. 

Because the spear that comes her way isn't received how it's supposed to be. She's not entirely facing the right direction.

It takes her off her misplaced feet in all of the wrong ways.

She has no chance of breaking her own fall, and it's all her own fault, but that doesn't make the pain that erupts through her shoulder upon contact with the ground any less effective in throwing her off even further. (Ironically, it's the same shoulder as the last time, the right one. Ironically, it's the same person as the last time that facilitates its injury.)

Unironically, Charlotte nearly gasps for air. She finds it hard to breathe around the shock in her veins, the kind that always comes with any form of unexpected hurt. 

She does manage to get to her feet, to push through, but when the next spot, when the shove into the metal post of the ring, comes, she can't block the impact like she's supposed to, because her hurt arm feels limp and useless. She can't block the impact like she's supposed to, because she can't shake herself out of her surprise fast enough. 

So, when hands abruptly propel her forward, into the post, she doesn't manage to get her own up in time. 

And without those barriers, the bones of her right eyebrow and cheek is the part of her that takes the brunt of the force. It sends a blinding shot of pain through her face, down her spine, that completely outweighs the one aching dully in her shoulder. 

She crumples to the floor, and, instinctively—obviously too late—a hand flies up to the afflicted area. An involuntary noise slips past her lips, a sort of moan, sort of groan, sort of shout. 

There's a weird liminal timespan of about two seconds, and then something warm and wet starts to trickle down the skin of her palm. It takes another second for her to register what it is, because her head is suddenly pounding so sharply that it's all she can hear and focus on.

A low ringing starts to sound within her ears. 

She draws back her hand to gaze at it, but her vision is blurred around the edges. Everything feels vaguely like it's swaying and has failing foundations. 

She has to blink harshly, because whatever's on her palm, is now trying to get into her eye, and it's obstructing her view. And it's only when she wipes at it, to try to get it away, get it off, that she realizes that it's blood. 

It's only when she feels it smear across her forehead, that she puts two and two together.

"Oh," she breathes out, blankly.

She doesn't know what else to say, doesn't know how else to react. 

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registers the bell ringing, the match ending, but she's trying too hard to stand to care that they rushed the result.

"Charlotte, hey," a ref appears at her side as she makes it to her knees, not the one who was calling the match. "Hey, can you hear me? Look at me."

Charlotte does as he instructs, only looking through one squinted eye. She reaches out just as he does to use his arms for stability.

"Can you hear me?"

"I'm good," she says, by way of answer.

"Okay, let's get you to the medic, Charlotte. Can you stand?"

She nods.

"'Course."

He doesn't comment on how she had been struggling just moments before, and for that she's grateful. She's unsure if her pride could take any more of a hit currently.

With a few more seconds of recovery time, she's a little steadier than before. The initial sensation of the blow to her calibration is fading some, and it's giving her back her more basic motor functions, allowing her to stand and walk up the ramp without much complication. 

As soon as she's through the curtain and in gorilla, she's met with just the people who said they'd be waiting on her.

Except, instead of whatever heartbreaking, confrontational words they initially had planned for her, Charlotte is met only with strong hands and supportive touches.

They don't even say _one_ word. They don't have to.

Becky and Bayley take the place of the ref, and they both go to lift her arms to give her support across their shoulders, but when she flinches away from the side Becky's on and grasps at her own shoulder, Becky just holds her around the waist instead.

Sasha steps in front of her and uses a towel to start to wipe up some of the excess blood on Charlotte's face, with swift and practiced movements that are only meant to make it to where Charlotte can see a little better.

Charlotte lets her eyelids slide closed for a split-second, as Sasha goes over one of them. 

"'M fine," she tries to mumble convincingly. "'M okay."

Sasha pulls the towel back some, and as soon as Charlotte reopens her eyes, she sees that the woman's shaking her head.

"Don't even try it," is what's returned to her, quietly, so only she, Bayley, and Becky can hear. 

Charlotte simply nods. She doesn't say it again. She knows better by now than to push it at an instance like this.

"Let's get you to medical," Becky whispers next, her voice soft and raspy, as she ushers Charlotte gently forward. 

Charlotte sighs and goes without fight. 

She finds that she's just so _tired_ of fighting at this point. 

\---

You know, one thing that Charlotte's noticed lately is that she _really_ can't seem to catch a break.

What with losing the loves of her life to getting hurt twice to spending her nights alone, she really can't seem to have just _one_ second where the worst possible outcome _doesn't_ happen. 

She really _can't_ _seem_ to win.

And it's not fair, if she's completely honest. Because she feels like she's a relatively okay person—even good, possibly. She feels like bad people get wins all the time, so, why can't a relatively okay—possibly even good—person get a win every once in a while? 

She's paid her dues, she thinks. (She's paid a good amount, at least.) 

She's been through a lot, she knows. (Especially recently.)

So, does she really deserve the absolute _shit luck_ —the worst deal of the cards—that she's been given?

No. There's no way she does. 

And, yet, here she is, sitting in a room at the nearest emergency medical center. And here she's been for almost an hour.  

She's getting restless. She hates that she's alone. 

Sasha, Becky, and Bayley, despite their protests, were not allowed into the examination room, and they were not allowed into the room where they scanned Charlotte's head and x-rayed her shoulder and face.

So, Charlotte's been alone for a little _over_ an hour. She's been biting her tongue through the ache that's radiating from her shoulder, down her arm. She's been biting her tongue through the pain that panged in her eyebrow as they gave her stitches and biting her tongue through the pain reverberating in the bones of her cheek under it. 

The nurse gave her an ice pack a little bit before she was left to wait for the results by her lonesome, and it's currently being held to said hurting cheek by her uninjured arm, the opposite arm, so the position is awkward and it's making her muscles feel strained. 

Her _entire body_ feels strained—she's still trying to keep her composure.

She's exhausted. The few hours of sleep that she'd gotten—she was at the pier pretty late—didn't do much by way of rejuvenating her, and with the injury, their effectiveness has been completely wiped away.

She's drained not only physically but also emotionally, and she feels simultaneously numb and like she could burst into tears at any moment. 

It's all just too much, and it's all at once, and she _hates_ that she's alone. 

She's _sick_ of being alone. 

And the Powers That Be _almost_ seem sorry for her, _almost_ sympathetic, because the door opens in less than another blink of her eyes, but they're not quite caring enough to let it be anybody but her doctor.

She lets out a subtle huff. 

"How are you feeling now, Miss Flair? Has the pain subsided for you any?"

Charlotte bites down on her bottom lip. She figures it's not best to lie to a medical professional.

"Not really," she admits. "But it will. Do you know when can I go?"

The man watches her with the type of look that means she's not the first to try to rush through his care. It's a look of mild, mostly concealed exasperation. He shakes his head some.

"Well, we're still waiting on your brain scans and your face and shoulder x-rays to come back," he tells her. "So, it could still be another thirty minutes or so. Maybe even longer."

Charlotte's displeasure contorts her face fully, but the expression isn't very visible because of the bandage covering the stitches on her left eyebrow and the icepack cover the majority of her left cheek. 

"I know you wish to get home, Miss Flair," he continues, more sincerely now. "But we really do need to be sure you don't have a concussion or any fractures in your face and your shoulder."

She frowns—possibly petulantly—and drops her gaze to her feet, dangling a little off the examination table, making her feel young and vulnerable in a way that only places like doctors' offices can.

She lets out a long exhale through her nose. She refuses to cry.

"I know," she responds faintly, with a sniff.

A silence settles over them, and as he writes something on his clipboard, Charlotte just wills her tears to _please_ _not spill over for once._

An expanse of time passes—not short, but not long—where Charlotte is just fighting the urge to let her emotions overflow. And it's only when the sound of voices approaching, kind of loudly, from down the hallway catches both of their attentions, and startles her a bit, that she feels like she starts to win the battle.

She leans forward minimally on instinct to try to hear the conversation. 

She can tell, immediately, that whatever's being said is hostile, but she's only able to make out fragments of phrases. 

"— _twice now_ , that she's hurt her!"

"Calm d—."

"Hey, don't tell her to—."

"—to get your emotions in check."

"I don't need to do sh—."

Charlotte's head starts to throb again, she finds she can't bring herself to focus any longer. She leans back again and thinks the voices will pass, but then there's a knock and the door opens to reveal Sasha, Becky, and Bayley, flanked by two producers she vaguely recognizes, newer, less familiar ones. Suddenly, she's the most relieved she's ever been.

One of the nurses, the one who smiled at Charlotte and squeezed her hand while they were putting in the stitches, steps around them and walks over to her doctor, leaning in to whisper something in his ear quietly, too low for Charlotte to make out.

Not that she's even trying to listen very hard, and especially not now that Bayley, Becky, and Sasha are suddenly at her sides.

She almost is able to smile, there's at least a faint uplift to one side of her mouth.

"Are you alright?" Bayley whispers to her, as soon as she's close enough. Her eyebrows are knitted with concern, her own mouth is frowning. "Are you in a lot of pain?"

Charlotte does her best to shrug, she tries not to shudder as Becky's hand begins to rub soothing circles into the small of her back.

"About as well as I can be, I s'pose. The pain meds are kicking in slowly."

All _three_ of their frowns are almost identical then. Their eyes shine with the same sentiment of worry. 

Sasha reaches up to take the icepack from Charlotte's fingers and hold it herself. 

They each look like they might try to say something, but the doctor's voice cuts in. 

"Miss Flair, I'm going to go check on how your results are coming along. As I understand, these gentlemen need to discuss your accident with you."

Charlotte just nods by way of answer. 

"If you feel like anything starts to be too overwhelming for you, do not hesitate to get one of the nurses. You need to take it easy with your head injury.”

”Okay. Thank you.” 

They're all silent as he leaves, with the nice nurse, but when the door closes, Sasha speaks up immediately, to the two men in suits. 

"Once again, I don't think now is the best time to have this conversation. She's still in pain."

"Miss Banks," the shorter man addresses, in an attempted tone of geniality. "We understand your concern, but, as you know, these matters are best dealt with quickly and efficiently. So, we just need to ask a few questions about what happened from Charlotte's perspective."

Now, with more context, Charlotte can feel the tension radiating off of the three women around her in waves. The exchange of sharp words in the hallway makes a little more sense. 

"This really can't wait until tomorrow?" Bayley asks still, politely, probably not for the first time.

The other man, the taller one, the less empathetic looking one, shakes his head.

"We've already got reports and speculations starting to sprout up. We need to give an official statement of sorts before the morning."

Both Sasha and Becky look like they're about to find some sort of smart remark to shoot back at him, but Charlotte gently places her hands on them to stop the words in their tracks.

"It's fine," she says, still quiet. She meets the men's gazes. "Just try to make it quick, please?"

She gets nods and words of reassurance in response, and without further hesitation, they then proceed to ask the general questions.

_"You know you can't press charges, correct?"_

_"What happened?"_

_"Do you know what went wrong?"_

And Charlotte gives them the expected responses.

Well, _almost_ expected.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Sasha butts in, for the first time, after Charlotte's answer to " _Do you know what went wrong_?" 

Charlotte flinches lightly. 

"I—I said that it was really my fault. I wasn't all the way in the right positioning, and that's why I landed bad on the spear. My shoulder was hurting, which is why I was too caught off guard to fully block the hit from the post. So, it's not her fault. Not really."

The men continue to write down her words, and she watches the way their pens move instead of focusing on the eyes settled on her. 

"So, it was just a slip-up? And you would say that it just caused a bad sequence of events?"

Charlotte nods, as best as she can with Sasha still holding the ice to her face. 

"Yeah, I was just, um, I got distracted by something very briefly, someone in the crowd, or something, and it threw me off. Not a lot, but just enough to make things derail, I guess."

More scribbling against paper, more seconds of Charlotte feeling that familiar uneasiness creep into her spine. 

"Okay, Miss Flair. Thank you very much for your time. We do hope you feel better."

"Yeah, thanks," Charlotte says after them, as they take their leave. 

The room goes quiet. The sound of the door closing makes Charlotte's muscles tense. 

The amount of time that's passed seems to have allowed for the pain medication they've given her to kick in enough, so, at least, she doesn't feel like her body is coming apart at the seams physically anymore. Emotionally, though, she's still at square one. 

She coughs weakly. 

The mix of unsaid words, wholly felt feelings, so much history, lingers thickly in the air. The weight Charlotte felt free of for a few hours starts to settle in again. 

(At least, now, she doesn't feel like she'll float away. She also, though, doesn't feel very grounded.)

Her gaze sits intently on her hands in her lap, even as Bayley's on her right, Becky's on her left, and Sasha's in front of her. 

Someone lets out a sigh. 

"Have your pain meds kicked in yet?" Sasha asks quietly, breaking the silence. 

Charlotte once again nods, minutely. Sasha pulls the ice pack away. 

Out of instinct, or old habits, she reaches up to brush a featherlight touch across the bruising bone of Charlotte's cheek, but she pulls away too quickly for Charlotte to lean into it, out of instinct, out of old habits. 

She hands the ice pack to Bayley and draws away even further, to pace the room, not quickly, but still troubled. Charlotte can't help that her eyes are drawn up to the woman's movements; it's what they were made to do, after all, right? Watch out for her girls?

A few moments go by. Eventually, Charlotte can't take it anymore. The combination of Sasha's repeated path and the look of being so torn between two things on her face makes Charlotte finally speak up. 

"You're gonna wear a hole in the floor," she mumbles, softly.

"Better than punching one through someone's face," Sasha replies, not sharply but still enough distinct feeling to make Charlotte wince. 

Becky's hand continues its movements into her back. Bayley's hand rests on the back of her shoulders. 

"Sash," Becky says. 

Sasha pulls up some, bites down on her bottom lip. 

"Not hers." She meets Charlotte's stare. "Not yours." 

"I know," Charlotte whispers. That wasn't even a possibility. "Do you think you could slow down a little, though? You're making my head start to hurt again." 

Sasha's jaw clenches tight, not out of anger for some sort of inconvenience, but mostly because she needs to find some way to exert whatever's built up inside of her. Charlotte's fingers twitch, out of the want to massage the tension away. 

Sasha taps her foot against the ground, one, two, three, times, and then she crosses her arms over her chest. Charlotte braces herself; she knows what that means. 

"We need to talk about it," Sasha eventually states, looking at Becky and Bayley like they'd had a conversation before where she was on the losing side. "Sooner rather than later. Preferably in a few seconds."

"We just got those men out of here, Sash," Bayley says. "She's still in pain."

"Well, this is part of the reason she's _in pain_. This is the whole reason we're even standing in an emergency room right now."

Something in Sasha's voice takes on a strain similar to that of the kind in Charlotte's body. It makes something in Charlotte's chest twinge. 

For the first time, Charlotte notices the recognizable furrow to Sasha's eyebrows, that only forms when she's feeling guilty. 

"Still, maybe now isn't the best time to talk about this," Becky continues, patiently. "While she's possibly concussed and got stitches in her eyebrow."

"Well, when _else_ are we going to be able to talk about this?" Sasha retorts. "She's just gonna bolt again as soon as she can. As soon as they let her out of here. Hell, maybe even _before_ then."

"Well—."

"Um," Charlotte finally murmurs. "I may be concussed, but I can still  _hear._ Hello."

The room goes quiet again.

Becky apologetically scratches her nails lightly over the fabric of Charlotte's shirt.

Sasha kind of looks as if she's trying to catch her breath, but when she turns to look at Charlotte once more, it feels like she just steals hers instead.

Charlotte swallows thickly. She lets out a sigh. 

She thinks about how tired she's been. She thinks about how much she just wants all of the pain to be over and done with. She thinks about how they all deserve to move past this.

She lets her shoulders slump a little.

"Just go ahead and get it over with," she tells them, surrendering finally to her fate, to having to hear it from them. "While the medication is still strong enough."

Even with her eyes back down again, on her hands, she knows they all share a series of looks with one another. Now, with permission, they're unsure of how to go about it all. 

Charlotte understands the feeling, in a way. Perhaps that's why she's done all she has in quick, abrupt motions. Because she's so bad at being anything but reckless, even with her own heart. 

She wants to help them in some way, but she knows she can't. She's tried to do all the work for them, but it wasn't effective. 

She thought if she was the one to throw it all away, then she would save them from feeling guilty about having to do it themselves. But they're just such _good people_ that they have to see it through till the end, because they wouldn't feel right leaving it any other way—leaving her any other way. 

And she admires that, truly. She admires them, for always being so respectful, for always trying to do what's right, for always having good intentions, intentions never meant to hurt. 

But the fact of the matter is, that it does still hurt sometimes, and it does hurt presently, and if Charlotte has to sit through one more moment of tense silence, she might scream. 

So, she inhales a shaky breath, and she continues to loathe the fact that she's stuck in this emergency room. 

She shifts, uncomfortably, but she's still very much in Becky and Bayley's arms, so she finds no reprieve from the action. 

Finally, after what feels like forever, a collective intake of air is drawn amongst the three of them, and Charlotte attempts to fortify herself against the blow. 

She can hear the scuff of shoes in the hall outside. A muffled mix of laughs from the nurses at reception. Someone coughing next door. 

And then...

"Charlotte, we love you."

She frowns.

It's not exactly what she was expecting, but it's also not surprising. 

It's the typical way to start a conversation where one party is going to let another down easy.

You tell them they're a great person. That they brought great times and experiences into your life. That you love them, and you always will. 

But it's just not a match, not a fit, not meant to be. 

Charlotte recognizes it from maybe once or twice before in her life. She just never thought it'd be coming from them. 

Still, soldiering on, she nods. 

She waits for the rest. She waits for the " _However._ " 

She waits for Bayley and Becky's arms to withdraw. She waits for them to leave. 

But they don't. They stand firm, they stay still. 

Becky and Bayley don't let go of her. Sasha continues to look at her. 

They all three seem to also be waiting, for her reaction, for her response, and it's really just her own sense of confusion that allows her to manage to meet their gazes.

She shifts her attention to each of them. 

"Okay..." she says eventually, faintly. " _But_?"

"There is no ' _but_ ,' Charlotte," Becky says, almost with the same mildly concealed exasperation as the doctor. "That's it. We love you."

Charlotte shakes her head a little. 

"No, I mean, I know, but you—you're _together_ , and I— _I_ love you, in—in a way that a best friend shouldn't love you. So—."

"Charlotte," Bayley cuts in this time, still sounding so gentle. "Did you ever actually ask us about the situation?"

"Well, no, but I—."

"Just let yourself assume the worst," Sasha finishes. "Right?"

Charlotte remains quiet. She feels an unidentifiable feeling swirling within her, and even though she doesn't quite know what it is, it's making her want to throw up.

Her jaw ticks a few times, and then Sasha reaches out to take hold of the hand of her good arm, forcing her to look at her again.

"Charlotte,  _we love you_ , in the same way that you love us. There's never been a moment where we haven't. So,  _why_  have you been fighting this? Thinking you weren't included?"

Charlotte chokes up, on the abrupt appearance of shock in her throat. She shakes her head lightly. 

"I-I wasn't  _fighting_  it," she whispers, truthfully. "I-I just—I didn't know—I didn't  _think_  that you would—that you  _could_..."

And she's still having such trouble expressing herself, but they seem to know this time.  _Finally_.

The realization settles within them suddenly and solidly. 

Someone breathes out a quiet, "Oh," and Charlotte feels a weak sob stir in her chest.

Everything feels too good to be true. She thinks maybe she got hit in the match and instead of being where she is now, she's actually lying comatose in a hospital bed dreaming up the whole thing.

But then Becky—always there, always fighting, always earnest—says, "Well, we do," and that's all she needs to say. 

Charlotte's eyelids flutter as a breath shudders through her. One of her tears finally falls. Becky wipes it away. 

Sasha squeezes their fingers together again.

“We’re a stable, Charlotte," she says. "What stables do you know in real life that are anything but a square?” A watery hiccup, kind of a laugh escapes Charlotte’s lips. Sasha’s other hand comes up to cover where they're already joined. “We’re four-sided, sweetheart. We always have been, and we always want to be. With _you_. No one completes us like you. No one looks out for us like you.”

"No one else carries our bags without us asking. Just because they feel like it," Bayley adds. “No one else drives for hours on end when they don’t have to because we’re tired.” 

"No one else gets our favorite snacks at the grocery because they saw them and remembered it'd been a while since we've had ‘em," Becky continues. "No one else stays awake until we fall asleep and carries us to bed when we forget to make it there."

Charlotte sniffles, far too overcome to try to interrupt them.

"No one else _loves us_ like you, Char," Sasha finishes. "And no one ever will, because there is _no one else_. If we're not four with you, then we'll always be three. And three is a good number. It's solid, and it's steady." She tilts her head, as that same look comes over her face, the one from just before they'd kissed. Charlotte thinks she might know what it means now. "But it's not the same without you. Because you're our girl, and we've _always_ been yours. From the start..."

And then Sasha trails off. She leaves it open for her. That look on her face is almost uncertain, but somehow not—a caught in between. Because Sasha knows. Sasha has to know. Sasha _always_ knows when it comes to Charlotte. 

A second passes, slow and in a way that could’ve been painstaking if Charlotte wasn’t feeling so much sudden euphoria in her veins—a relief that pain medicine can't even come close to.

Another follows, and this one does appear to be painstaking for them, so, finally, Charlotte lets a real smile lift her lips, for the first time in a month and a half. (She barely even registers how her cheeks almost want to ache at the sensation.)

Her voice is quiet and content when she finishes the statement with, “Till the end,” and as she watches the same relief visibly relax the muscles of Sasha’s face, followed immediately by Becky’s and Bayley’s, her expression is similar. 

A warm, tingling feeling brushes across Charlotte’s skin, as Sasha brings her hand up and presses her lips to the center of her palm. Her eyes slide shut as Bayley does the same to the crown of her head. As Becky kisses her over her left eyebrow, in a way that's lingering and loving. 

Another of her tears falls, but it's a happy one, _finally_ a happy one, after all this time. 

After all the time of pain that could've been prevented, for all of them, if she'd just calmed down for a second.

She hiccups again.

"I'm sorry," she finds herself breathing out, unexpectedly and without prior thought. "I'm sorry. I—I didn't know of another way to deal with it. I—."

"Shh," Bayley shushes her, barely audible, as her mouth is still close to buried in Charlotte's hair. She shifts her hand from Charlotte's shoulder to the back of her neck—a solid, grounding connection. "It's alright."

"It's not," Charlotte insists, feeling a burning, urgent need to explain how her sense of self-preservation made her do things that she'd never wanted to do. "I—I _hurt_ you. I hurt all of you, and I didn't _mean_ to, I never _wanted_ to. You've gotta know that. I can't let you think—."

"Baby," Becky whispers, close to Charlotte's cheek, as she presses her forehead gently into Charlotte's temple from the side. "We know. We forgave you already. We forgive you again. It doesn't matter anymore. Or, at least, it doesn't matter right now. We don't have to talk about it right now."

And Charlotte wants to let it all spill out of her, now that she's not as scared about the consequences of them hearing it. She wants to release all of the dark doubts and reasons that have been haunting her for the past month and a half, the past six weeks, the past forty-two days, that she's been without them. 

She wants them to know that she had good intentions. She thought she was helping them. She never thought they'd love her back. 

But as Bayley and Becky shift their arms down to wrap around her, tender, careful of her injury, but firm. As Sasha refuses to let go of her hand, even as her doctor comes in again, Charlotte tells herself to wait. 

She reminds herself that they have time. Time that she didn't think existed anymore. Time together, that she can look forward to again. 

She lets out a soft sigh, and she finally relaxes against them, into their hold and their touch. 

She almost finds it hard to focus on what her doctor's telling her. 

And she doesn't know what the future holds. She doesn't know if she'll be forced to sit out for a while. She doesn't know if she'll face consequences for botching the match. 

But she does know, with complete certainty, once more, that she'll be okay. She _will_ recover. 

Because she has them. 

She has her best friends, her girls, her _soulmates_. 

She has the loves of her life: Sasha, Bayley, and Becky. 

And, really, they're all she'll ever need to keep going. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: This story has been planned for weeks, and, so, I just wanted to say that this is in no way a commentary of sorts on Becky's unfortunate injury during the invasion of Raw. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading! The feedback and response I've gotten on this story has been so surreal to me, seeing as it started out as a vague "what if" concept that I started discussing with my friend on Tumblr. Every single comment and kudos, like and reblog, has been appreciated more than you can possibly know.
> 
> A specific thank you to my friend from Tumblr, Camille, for helping me form this concept into a real plot and for helping me workshop through ideas. 
> 
> To my other Tumblr friends that have been continuously supportive and enthusiastic about this story, Sofia, Ash, and Padya, I appreciate your kindness and comments more than you know. Thank you.

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr is Flairfatale


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